Please go to:
C:\Users[b][/b]\AppData\Roaming\GPSoftware\Directory Opus\ConfigFiles
Then move smartfav.osf out of there and to your desktop or somewhere else for safekeeping.
Kill dopus.exe if it is still stuck (or fully exit Opus (via File / Exit Directory Opus) if it is running normally), then start it up again and see if it gets beyond "Startup progress: 37".
If that does solve things, open up the saved smartfav.osf and please paste what was in it here so we can take a look (assuming none of the paths inside are private).
I suspect that is a coincidence, unless triggered by a shell extension. It's not something Opus itself would do.