Setting Blu-Ray Player region?

I live in the UK and my aim is to watch domestic Blu-Ray's (Region 2/A) and US/Hong Kong/Japanese Blu-Ray's (Region 1/A).
My fear is that I buy and install a pair of Blu-Ray players (thats possible right?) and find they are locked for Region 2/A. Either the hardware is locked from the start or Windows has some security feature which will lock down the players against my wishes.
So can anyone who owns a PC based Blu-Ray player tell me if it lets them choose the region it plays, or better yet is effectively 0 region.

Thanks in advance for any replies  

i think the software will ask you to choose a region the first time you try to play a disc....thats usually how it works

Thanks for replying

So you have to set things up in the software you use to play the disks?
I had hoped that you could set the region code through the Device Manager > Properties > Region tab, where it says you have X remaining chances to change your region. Is that possible with Blu-Ray drives?