Yikes! How aggravating! I agree 100% on "not ownership"; there have been times when I had to do things directly on the laptop, external monitors not working, and had to get help because I couldn't see. It crushes our independence.

Thanks very much for the warning. I knew that the updates could be disruptive, but I didn't know they clobbered settings. I will find out how to create restore points and do that. Fortunately, I have an external hard drive that's large enough for that job. (IT didn't always provide backup services for desktop machines.)