Hello, I have what will hopefully be a quick question for a simple
problem. I use my home computer as my entertainment center, including
watching DVDs. Lately many of my DVDs have come with an automatic
Installer for InterActual Player (With what it does to my computer I
think Norton should consider it a virus, not a valid program.)
Anyways, what I would like to be able to do is keep that installer
from ever popping up or trying to install, but still be able to have
my DVDs autoplay when I put them in. I have tried simply
disabling Auto-play, but then I have to go through the trouble of
launching up my DVD player manually, and this is one of the things I
am trying to avoid. I do not need Windows auto play for anything other
than DVDs, so if you can find a program that will cause my DVDs to
start playing automatically, with Windows Auto play turned off that
would be not only acceptable, but preferred. I am running Windows XP
Professional SP1, and use Intervideo WinDVD Platinum 6.0 to play my
DVDs. If you need any furhter information before answering this
question please feel free to post a request for clarification, instead
of guessing, because I would like as correct as possible of an answer
the first time. Thank you for your time. Also, if this question will
require research or time beyond the listed value, please let me know
and I will repost the question with a greater value.

Have you tried Microsoft Windows AntiSpyware?

This comes to mind because it's free (for now).  I'm confident it will
notify you anytime the player installation proceeds and ask you to
allow/block it.  Whether the advanced settings will let you
permanently block InterActual Player or just deny everything by
default, I can't say for certain because I've never used these
features.  If you are that furious and can afford the time (and since
the price is right) maybe you could give it a try.

It is compatible with your current Windows version and you can get it here:

[ http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx ]

Quick Google search for "change dvd autoplay" pulled up the following article:

http://www.winbookcorp.com/_technote/WBTA20000846.htm

Just change the auto-play options to always pull up WinDVD when a DVD is inserted.

simply go into msconfig in the run menu and untick the interactual
box, this will stop it from booting!

Right-click on the video file within the cd and hover over the "Open
With" option. Click on that option and select the player you want to
use. After you do that, you should see a small white box preceding
something like "Always use this program to open this type of file".
Check that box. Congrats, your problems are now solved!

PS-I'm using Windows 98 so a few things might differ between my OS and
yours, however if you compensate for those miniscule differences, then
your problem should be solved.

Some DVDs come with a data-track that contains InterActual software.
So Windows detects a "Data-DVD" instead of a "Video-DVD" and launches
not your DVD player software but whatever is specified by the DVD's
autorun file - in your case, the InterActual installer.

There are two ways around this problem:
1) holding the shift key pressed while the DVD is first read (this
will bypass autorun for this DVD only)
2) changing autoplay options for mixed-content DVDs by
- downloading TweakUI from Microsoft [ Windows Powertoys page:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx
or direct download: http://download.microsoft.com/download/f/c/a/fca6767b-9ed9-45a6-b352-839afb2a2679/TweakUiPowertoySetup.exe
])
- After starting TweakUI, open the Node "My Computer" in the tree on
the left, then open the node "Autoplay", then click on "Handlers"
- scroll down the list until you see the entry for your favourite DVD
player software ("Play DVD using ..."), select it, click "Edit"
- Tick the box that says "Mixed content"
- Press "OK", Press "OK" in TweakUI

If that doesn't work, you can disable Autoplay for CD and DVD drives
using TweakUI ("My Computer -> Autoplay -> Types"), or for only your
DVD drive ("My Computer -> Autoplay -> Drives"; NOT "My computer ->
Drives"!).