Subtitles with .vob dvd file

I am trying to play a DVD with .vob files on WMP (windows 7, 64 bit).  the option to select subtitles is greyed out (the subtitles menu shows that subtitles are available in both French and English, with French selected, but I cannot select them to turn them on).  Note, this is a Zone 2 video that I'm playing in Zone 1, but WMP is still loading it. This is a legit, factory-created DVD (i.e., not a bootleg)

I have tried all of the following:

Using K-Lite Codec pack:
On Win7DSFilterTweaker, I selected "Use Merit" on all cases, and on Media Foundation disabled all file formats, for both 32-bit and 64-bit (note, did not list .vob as a file format, which may be the problem)

Downloaded alternative video players (including MPC-HC x64):
+In all instances, these played the picture in a highly-pixelated, and unwatchable format (should mention I have very high resolution monitors)
+Tried copying vob file to my desktop and renaming .mpg file but got the same result (i.e., pixelated)

Went in into Windows Media Center and turned on subtitles so always on (i.e., not just when muted) and tried accessing the subtitles menu other ways too in WMP (i.e., selecting lyrics, captions and subtitles) and the same result.

Picture plays fine on WMP but just no subtitles (trying to listen in french and have french subtitles show, to improve my language skills)

Any ideas?
Help!

--Greg D.

Media Foundation is not used for DVD playback.

Do you get the DVD menu in WMP? There you can select subtitles. You should open the video_ts.ifo file instead of the .vob files.

Did you enable hardware acceleration for MPEG-2? That could be a cause for the pixelated video (in combination with bad graphics driver). Disable hardware acceleration and also update the driver.