[TmEE]

In my case only things that cause problems are files that have been saved to the HDD, workaround is to drag them into opera window, then they'll open without illegal operation error and the string of garbage in google. Links etc. from other programs always work in here, just not offline files...

[Mathwiz]

loblo, on 18 March 2012 - 05:54 AM, said:

Can't you copy the link and then paste it in Opera's address bar? That's what I am doing.

I sure would love if there was a fix for that bug though.

I happen to be using Outlook 2000 (reason is complex and I don't want to go into it here), which doesn't have a copy link, copy shortcut, or the like in the right-click context menu, so the only way to do what you suggest is to highlight the actual URL text and Ctrl-C (or right-click and select Copy). I can do that in plain-text emails, of course, but not in HTML emails. Other email clients are probably not so limited.

I've done some more research and have a guess about what's going on. I think Opera is using raw DDE instead of the ddeml.dll library. Ddeml.dll will translate between ASCII and Unicode appropriately, but raw DDE doesn't. I think Opera is assuming the DDE string it's reading is in Unicode, which is probably true in Win2K/XP; but in Win98 it's getting ASCII and interpreting it as Chinese Unicode characters.

I even tried replacing the ddeml.dll library with the WinXP version, thinking maybe it'd translate the ASCII text coming from the shell into Unicode. But even with KernelEx, all I got was Windows crashing at startup, so I had to put the Win98 version of ddeml.dll back.

So it looks like the only solution is not to use Opera as your default browser on Win98. Oh, well, you can't say I didn't give it a fair try.

[Mathwiz]

I found a solution!!

Go to http://www.coises.co...re/launcher.htm and download the freeware "Launcher" program. The .ZIP file includes source, but if you just need to fix Opera's Chinese Google problem, all you need is Launcher.exe and Launcher.ini. Save them both to the same directory; e.g., C:\Program Files\Launcher.

Launcher is a tiny program that does basically the same job as the Windows Shell, but has a bit more flexibility - just enough more to get Opera to open a link properly in Win98.

The supplied Launcher.ini has sections labelled OperaOldWin and OperaNewWin but they're a little out of date and don't quite work right. Replace them thusly:

[OperaNewWin]
command=""C:\Program Files\Opera\opera.exe" "%1" /nowin /e"
ddeexec="%1",,0
application=Opera
topic=WWW_OpenURL
IfExec=
request=1
ActivateTopic=WWW_Activate

[OperaNewPrivateWin]
command=""C:\Program Files\Opera\opera.exe" "%1" /nowin /e"
ddeexec="%1",,-1
application=Opera
topic=WWW_OpenURL
IfExec=
request=1
ActivateTopic=WWW_Activate

Now, you have to edit the registry. Go to the key [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\http\shell] and expand it. There will be a command subkey and possibly a ddeexec subkey. Delete the ddeexec subkey and its subkeys if it exists, and change the command subkey's default value to: "<path>\launcher.exe" OperaNewWin %1
(where <path> is the path where you saved launcher.exe and launcher.ini). Do the same for the key [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\https\shell] so you can open secure links too. You can make the same changes to [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\htmlfile\shell\open] also, if you want .htm files to open in Opera as well.

And that's it! Now clicking a URL shortcut from the desktop or a link from your email client will open properly, whether Opera is already running or not.

Edit: This may go without saying, but make sure neither Opera nor any other browser checks whether it's the default browser. Otherwise, it'll think Launcher is your default browser and change your registry back the way it was. (OTOH, this is a quick way to reset the registry keys if you screw them up or just decide you don't want to use Launcher.)

The differences between what Launcher does and what the Windows shell does are minor, but they fix the problem:

• The IfExec= line tells Launcher not to start a DDE conversation if Opera isn't already running. I wish the Windows shell had that feature!
  
• The request=1 line tells Launcher to use DDE "request" mode instead of "execute" mode. This not only solves the Chinese Google bug, it gets rid of the annoying "Cannot start Opera.exe" message that comes up (even on WinXP) after the link successfully opens

There's one minor bug I still haven't squashed: the ActivateTopic key is supposed to switch the focus to Opera if it's already running. But it doesn't seem to work: you have to switch to Opera manually. But I can live with that.

This post has been edited by Mathwiz: 23 March 2012 - 09:37 PM

[TmEE]

Wow, I will definitely try this !

[loblo]

Mathwiz, on 22 March 2012 - 08:42 PM, said:

some very cool stuff...

Tops man!!!

[TmEE]

I just tried it out and it works awesome

I made a registry file for my own purposes

I also suggest changing Opera.HTML entry too as it controls MHT files and I got a fair bunch of them ^^

[loblo]

It's awesome isnt'it?

I figured out I could launch Opera from shortcuts through launcher.exe as well so after a bit of fiddling I found out what needs to be entered in the target field of the shortcut so if I click on it while Opera is already running it will just nicely open a new tab instead of the gibberish chinese:

"C:\Program Files\Opera\LAUNCHER.EXE" OperaNewWin " "

And if someone is suffering from being unable to drag an url to the desktop, an issue which I found out is older than I thought and also affects some XP and 7 systems for reasons that aren't very clear, there is a very nice workaround that's been found a while ago here:

http://my.opera.com/...c.dml?id=193574

Follow the instructions carefully, not missing creating the new MIME type and you'll end up with a button somewhere on your toolbar, I have placed it between the navigation buttons and the address field, on which you can just click to automatically save the url file of the current web page to the desktop.

[Mathwiz]

loblo, on 25 March 2012 - 04:49 PM, said:

It's awesome isnt'it?

I figured out I could launch Opera from shortcuts through launcher.exe as well so after a bit of fiddling I found out what needs to be entered in the target field of the shortcut so if I click on it while Opera is already running it will just nicely open a new tab instead of the gibberish chinese:

"C:\Program Files\Opera\LAUNCHER.EXE" OperaNewWin " "

Excellent! The blank URL opens up speed dial! I've been looking for a way to do that (Opera left out anything like an about:speeddial or opera:speeddial shortcut).

[Mathwiz]

Just upgraded to Opera 11.62. Everything seemed to go smoothly except for one thing: the Opera installer insisted on making Opera my default browser (and overwriting my launcher.exe registry entries), even though I made sure the "Make Opera my default browser" box on the installer options screen was unchecked. Of course I only found out later, when I clicked a link in Outlook and got Chinese Googled again

So I saved my registry changes to a "fixopera.reg" file to simplify the next upgrade.

[1234567890]

hello all
..set opera 11.62
1. do not tell how to remove the black box (see screenshot)
*I remember that once solved this problem when the opera was 10.62
2. how to fix problems with the display of speed and size of files being downloaded? (see screenshot)
Windows ME, kernelEx 4.5 final .. Opera 11.62 run in compatibility mode for Windows 2000
grateful for the help))

Attached File(s)

•  Thumbnails_.png (19.09K)
  Number of downloads: 12
•  1.gif (3.92K)
  Number of downloads: 3

[schwups]

I've the problems with the display of speed and size of files being downloaded only on a very few pages. My KernelEX version is 4.5.2.

[schwups]

I installed Opera 12.00 beta1 (04/25/2012) successfully with comp. mode Win2000. Main problem: Opera doesn't detects any plugins on Win ME, so that I can't open many pages. It works (not quite stable), if I disable all plug-ins. Opera detects them on WinXP SP1 and SP2 .

[schwups]

HTML5 support   Test

A little comparison

Opera 12.00 beta   385 points out of a total of 500 points

Opera 11.62            338 points
Opera 10.63            240 points

Opera 10.10            126 points

Firefox 10.0.2          327 points

Firefox   8.0.1           323points

Firefox 3.5.19          173 points

Pale Moon 8            338 points

Pale Moon 3.6.31   188 points

IE 6 SP1                   26 points 

This post has been edited by schwups: 04 May 2012 - 03:29 AM

[Steven W]

Does anyone know what would be causing the issue in the attached screenshot? It's not the skin -- does the same thing with or without it.

Attached File(s)

•  prob.jpg (100.24K)
  Number of downloads: 17

[Steven W]

Nevermind, Windows 2000 sp4 compatibility mode fixes it. It's been a while since I've used 98 SE so much, forgetting all the little details.

This post has been edited by Steven W: 20 September 2012 - 05:43 PM