So, let’s say I wanted to remove the ability of my laptop to play DVD movies without impairing it’s ability to run software, music, or DVD training programs. How would that work? HP with windows Vista, BTW.
That is not really possible as far as I know. DVD training videos are DVD movies so I don’t know of a way to differentiate the two from a technology standpoint. You may have to go back to the old-school ways of giving your movies away, locking them in a safe, or seeking professional time-management assistance. It is a common problem but computers can’t do everything for you.
There may be some blacklisting software out there that blocks your DVD movies but I don’t know of any off of the top of my head. You would still have control of it anyway if it is your own computer.
To eliminate your laptop’s ability to play DVD movies, you could delete the codec files themselves, or much more easily, uninstall programs that are capable of playing DVDs and then install alternative software for e.g., listening to music without DVD codecs.
As noted by Shagnasty, you can’t make it impossible to watch DVD training movies but not movies movies. That doesn’t make any sense.
IMHO, Once you disable the DVDs, you will only find another time waster online. In a week you will be asking “How can I shut off my internet for fun but not work related stuff?”
Since training videos are generally shorter than the usual 90-120 minutes of an entertainment movie, you might look for some method to stop the playback of DVD’s after, say 65 minutes. But I don’t know if such a thing is available. (And I suspect it would be easily defeated, say by splitting your movie DVD into 2 shorter files.)
How about changing the region code of the DVD drive? That will make it difficult to play locally purchased DVD movies. Training videos usually don’t have region codes, so those should be fine.
oh well, just a thought, thanks anyway