User Settings Disappearing; Monitor Settings Unstable; Desktop Search Overtakes System; Laptops Unusable

I have a business which uses five HP Pavilion laptops, each of which is
under a year old, as well as two new HP desktops, all running Vista Ultimate
and Vista Ultimate x64. Each has 4GB of RAM and at least dual core
processors. All are running with only MS operating systems and MS software,
nothing else.

In every instance, the user settings (folder display settings, search
settings, RDP connectivity) will change no matter how often they are reset,
reconfigured, or reorganized. It sometimes changes within five minutes;
other times, after a reboot; and then again seem to stay fixed, only to
change to some aggravatingly off-target arrangement after three reboots.
Large icons displayed when Detail View is selected; Music and Video folder
settings repeatedly applied over Document folders.

When giving a very stressful presentation today, my newer HP laptop with
Vista Ultimate spent over 15 minutes trying to adapt to the same HD monitor
I had set up earlier this morning. It never displayed on the large monitor,
and wouldn't let me access any settings on the laptop. Unplugging the HD
monitor gave me my laptop monitor back, but wouldn't display the HD settings
with the HD monitor disconnected. I pulled out a backup laptop (also HP
Pavilion, also pre-configured for Vista Ultimate, and also pre-set up for
the same HD monitor), and it failed to recognize the large screen as either
a VGA monitor, HDMI display or even a bare-bones S-VIDEO device. I had had
that same laptop and same HD monitor finally running together yesterday,
after hours of rebooting, and thought the settings were good. Today, the
Vista Ultimate settings, of course, reset to put both of my laptops, and my
business presentation, in the most unworkable, unusable and frustratingly
incompetent state I could have only expected from someone out to put me out
of business.

WHAT IS IT with Vista Ultimate and the configuration settings that I am
unable to rely upon when trying to ready my presentation hardware that
refuses to stay configured??!