The Falcon's Nest

If you are in the habit of trying out every new Opera release -- be it a final, a technology preview, a beta or a weekly build; and if all you do is upgrade (i.e. install over the previous Opera installation) instead of doing a clean install; chances are by now your profile\opera6.ini file (under Help > About Opera, see Preferences under the Paths section for its location on your machine) is a veritable mess.

Due to the ever-evolving nature of Opera, many settings in the profile\opera6.ini file change not only in their values but their syntax and semantics as well. Failure to use a well-formed preferences file can cause all sorts of problems; starting with weird page loading, bad CPU and memory usage and so on.

If you think doing a clean install and migrating all your settings and mail over is a big task you are not feeling up to, the simple procedure below may give you enough of what you need. As always, remember to make a full back-up of your Opera profile and mail folders before doing this.

• As described above, note the location of your profile\opera6.ini file.
• (Optional) Run Tools > Delete private data to clear your cache and cookies.
• Close Opera completely.
• Delete the profile\opera6.ini file.
• Start Opera again.

This will re-create the profile\\opera6.ini file from the operadef6.ini file in your Opera installation folder, and will contain data as if you had done a clean Opera installation. It should not affect your customizations (toolbar or menu setups, bookmarks, notes, passwords etc) or your mail / feeds.

You will lose the customizations you had made by directly editing the profile\opera6.ini file, of course -- and this is mostly a good thing (they are what probably landed you in this mess to start with). In Opera 9, you should be using opera:config instead of editing this file by hand, anyway. You will also lose the personal information you had entered in Tools > Preferences > Wand > Personal information, but it is easy enough to enter again.