HomePage 3 of 4: PowerDVD 8 Ultra Region Hack
PowerDVD 8 Ultra Region Hack
Please note, the following instructions only work if your Blu-ray drive is a type that does not have hardware based region coding.
Getting rid of the Blu-ray region change restriction in PowerDVD 8 is not as simple as in PowerDVD 7, but still relatively simple.
BD region control in PowerDVD 8 is stored in a file called BRF.dat, and it is controlled by a runtime program called brs.exe (Blu-ray Region System?). If brs.exe is running in the background, BRF.dat cannot be deleted or modified except by PowerDVD. However, if you stop brs.exe, then you can simply delete BRF.dat and the region settings will default back to the original settings (no region selected, 5 changes left).
If brs.exe is already running, you can stop it by using any Windows process manager. First make sure PowerDVD isn't running. The built-in Windows Task Manager works as well - you can enable it by right clicking on the Windows task bar and selecting "Task Manager" or pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del and selecting "Task Manager" from there.
In Task Manager, go to the "Processes" tab and find the "brs.exe" program, right click on it and select "End Process". Press "Yes" on the warning prompt that pops up and "brs.exe" should no longer be a running process. Close Task Manager.
You can now find and delete the BRF.dat file. On Windows XP, it is usually located in "X:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\CyberLink\BDNAV" (where X:\ is the drive that Windows is installed on). On Windows Vista, it should be in "X:\ProgramData\Cyberlink\BDNAV\". Just delete this file and start PowerDVD. The Blu-ray region settings should have reset.
But the next time you reboot, brs.exe will have restarted. You can cause brs.exe to shutdown permanently by using a tool called "msconfig". Be careful using this tool as if you deselect the wrong item, certain programs could fail to start the next time you reboot. Press the Windows key + R (or click on the Start button and select "Run") and type in "msconfig" to launch the tool. Go to the "Startup" section and find the item named "brs" - uncheck the checkbox next to it. Press "Apply" and "Close" to close the System Configuration tool - you may be asked if you wish to restart the system or to exit the config tool without restarting ... chose either option.
The next time Windows boots, brs.exe won't be automatically set to run and so you can delete BRF.dat without having to shut down this process in the future.
