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I've got winXP machine (latest and greatest patches). When I put in a DVD disc with an original movie (e.g. kong fu panda, Bee Movie...) and two users are logged in (both are admi nistrators) only one can actually watch the movie. The other one can only see there is something in the DVD player (choosing e: shows it's there, doesn't hang but with no files).

How can both users read the DVD ?

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are you saying choosing the E: drive on the 'bad user' shows zero files inside the drive, no VIDEO_TS folder or anything like that? – CreeDorofl Mar 27 '11 at 21:28
yes, exactly. No files - as if I've put a blank (but formatted) dvd. – DrorCohen Mar 28 '11 at 8:10
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The machine appears to be smart enough to know that moving the read head for alternating users would kill the DVD (perhaps literally as well as performance-wise). I suspect the DVD playing program probably opened the DVD with exclusive access - for good reason.

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I thought about this explanation but the second user (the one that can see the movie) isn't running any (known to me) obvious software that's reading the dvd (no vlc, itunes, ...). If this is indeed the reason - how do I know which software opened the drive for execlusive r/w? – DrorCohen Mar 28 '11 at 8:12
I guess windows itself is what's reading it, and locking the other user? Do both users show they have access under gpedit.msc? You can find the setting here: +Click Start > Run > gpedit.msc > Click OK > User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Explorer > Double click "Prevent access to drives from My Computer" and set it to Disabled. – CreeDorofl Mar 29 '11 at 6:53
@CreeDorofl: both are set to "not configured". Anyway I logged of the second (locking) user and the first user was finally able to read the drive. Then I logged in back in the second user (first user had windows explorer open on that drive) and was able to read the drive. – DrorCohen Mar 30 '11 at 12:14
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