I use an old version of PowerDVD to play my old HD-DVD discs.  Unfortunately, the application was made back in the days where display cards didnt have enough GPU power to handle Aero glass while playing HD-DVDs.. so, the app just blindly disables Aero glass effects for my WindowsBlinds theme.

This is a long shot, but I was hoping someone knew where applications access in the registry to tell the system to turn off/on desktop composition.  I might be able to limit permissions in that part of the registry.  I already have a feeling that this may not be possible (for whatever reason) since if it were possible, someone would have done it a long time ago instead of suggesting the super clunky "restart uxsms service" work-around.