Hi Jim,
(In general, please ask one question per thread to help people looking for similar threads.)
[ol][li] The pages under Settings -> Preferences / Launching Opus decide what happens when you do the three different actions.
Assuming the different events are all set to open the Default Lister (and not a custom Layout or anything else), you probably just want to change the option about where the default lister opens on the screen:
Preferences / Launching Opus / Default Lister / Always in the same position
Try turning that on and see if the three methods you're using now all open the lister in your desired screen location.
[/li]
[li] The DOPusRT_RunSTD_{} tasks are most likely being created because a program which is UAC-elevated to run as administrator is launching folders, and Opus is not already running.
The Explorer Replacement code runs within the context of whichever program is launching the folder, and Opus -- like Explorer and the Windows shell in general -- needs to run non-elevated to work properly (details here). If Opus is already running then the elevated program can simply send it a message to ask it to open a new window. But if Opus is not running, if the elevated program ran Opus directly then Opus would also be elevated.
Using a scheduled task is one of the few reliable ways for an elevated program to launch another program without elevation, and that's the technique we use.
The tasks should be deleted automatically as soon as they have been used to launch Opus. If that isn't happening, can you think of which program may be launching folders in the way I just described so that we can see if the same happens for us?
It's also possible, although less likely, that the scheduled tasks are being created by a few other things. For example, you can manually create them by running dopusrt.exe with the /runstd argument. You'd know if you were doing that, though. They may also be used by the installer when installing or updating Opus.
If you edit the tasks and have a look at their Actions it may become clearer what they were doing and why.[/li][/ol]
PS: I edited out your registration code. You should keep that private, like a password. You've already linked your account (thanks!) and that's all that's needed to show you're a registered user on the forum.