i tried to uninstall the "market research" and the "tray app" programs but both uninstall processes kept asking for those damned discs and would abort.

however, when i was googling the other week, it seemed to me that maybe these are part of HP's printer software package. he used to have an HP printer a while ago and, while the printer itself was deleted from the system, i saw that there are three HP programs still installed. there are no other HP peripherals on his pc. so i uninstalled all three of them. i got those same demands to insert CDs but this time the uninstall went through.

lo and behold, the demands to insert the discs are gone at start up.

success!