How to play a DVD on new laptop computer (1 Viewer)

Very minor question, but how do you play a DVD that's already loaded and is just seen as another disk within the system?
Just bought and setup a new HP dv6 laptop. Everything is working so far and it plays DVDs just fine.
My question is how to start an episode when the disk is already in the player?
I see VOB, BUP and IFO files, but none of them will start an episode. The IFO and BUP files all fail with a "Windows can't open the program....".
The BUP files open some sort of movie editor so no go there either.
I can eject the disk, reinsert and it starts and plays just fine but is there a way to just go to episode 7 and start playing it without all the in/out, sit through the Showtime promos, manuever through the menus, etc. and just get where I know I left off last time?

The DVD player software for Windows (or MAC) is more or less similar to what is on most stand-alone DVD players, so you'll pretty much have to navigate your way through the disc whenever you want to watch even a small portion of it.

Some software programs, though, will remember if you did not finish viewing a disc and will ask you if you'd like to start where you left off or start the disc from the beginning.

Thanks for the response Todd. Had a feeling it would be similar to what you stated. I just figured since each episode (Dexter at this time) is essentially a big data file there would be some sort of executeable file to launch it, but no luck. More proprietary stuff from the studios.

Stan said:

My question is how to start an episode when the disk is already in the player?

Click to expand...

Right-click the disc and choose Play. Depending on which representation of the disc you're clicking, double-click might also work.
With some players, you can run the app, and then from there Open the VIDEO_TS folder; or an IFO (info) or the first numbered VOB (video object, hint: they're huge) for a numbered VTS (Video Title Set -- i.e. each episode). (BUPs are backups of the IFO files.) Double-clicking is a shortcut for opening, but is not always registered, and can be overridden by something else.

Ken, the right click and play does work, can't believe I didn't even see that.
Thanks for the hint, it's a start in the right direction and I'll continue to play with the software and see if I can work things out. Lots of what I try still launches Windows Movie Maker, but maybe I can get around that.
Also liked the info on what the file extensions meant, had no idea what they were.