Thank you for your help.

The Shortcut tab has four editable fields: Start In, Target, Shortcut Key, and Comment.

The "Target" field ends with: ...\Programs\Opera\launcher.exe.
I have tried with and without quotations around the path.
This does allow me to add "--disable-update" but I get an error where I have to say which program to use to open the file. Also it does update.

The "Start In" field ends with ...\Local\Programs\Opera.
I have tried with and without quotation marks around the path. It always gives this error message:

The folder '"...\Local\Programs\Opera" --disable-update' specified in the Start In box is not valid. Make sure that the folder exists and that the path is correct.

Deleting --disable-update gets rid of this error.

"Shortcut Key" will not let me add --disable-update.
"Comment" field allowed me to type --disable-update, but the game still didn't work.

Thanks again!

I have installed an old version of Opera from before Flash was disabled. I disconnected the internet before installing so it couldn't update during installation and am trying to disable automatic updates.

The directions I found say to add [space]--disable-update after the target path.

I've tried this with the desktop icon and the taskbar icon. When I click, I get a popup asking what program I want to use to open the file. I have to tell it to use Opera. That does work, but the first thing it does is download a file. The flash game I want to play? Doesn't work.

I noticed the instructions show the target path in quotations with [space]--disable-update after the closing quotation. That's how I typed it. Windows moves --disable-update inside the quotations. I don't know if that has anything to do with my problem or how to keep Windows from changing it.

Any advice would be appreciated. My machine runs Windows 7.