(I didn't coin the term assware, but it's great so I stole it) I watched "Elf" tonight, mainly to see if the computer I hooked up to the TV made a good enough DVD player. (it almost does; it is watchable but not ideal) This is a windows 10 machine, so windows media player won't play DVD's -- I had to install VLC. But since I didn't have a dvd player at first, windows opened the disk in file explorer. What's all this stuff besides VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS? Especially an autorun file and install.exe? I have autorun disabled, so it didn't actually do anything, but there was a readme file on there too encouraging me to install their enhanced experience software; something called Interactual Player. I can't find much information about it, but what little I can find does not look good. It's not an actual media player, it hooks into your media player and Internet Explorer. I may install it in a VM just to see what it does...
I thought only certain Sony BMG CD's from that period contained spyware.
I should also try Cyberlink PowerDVD. (I think I have some old disks for it) The problem I ran into with VLC was occasional brief stuttering when it was obviously buffering. And I think Windows Media Player does that too on XP and 7. From what I remember from many years ago, PowerDVD doesn't have that issue.
I have a cheap BluRay player downstairs on the other TV, I can use that when I
really want to watch a DVD, and can move it to the upstairs TV if I have to.