I read your whole post with this in the back of my head but you beat me to it

I suspect this might be the case, but I'm not positive. I like the suggestion, though. Any time I'm setting up a new computer for a client at my house, I do it this way too, so I can use my own monitor and keyboard/mouse.

I'll have to give this one some serious thought. Though I suspect they might be pretty locked down, given that two of them are from governmental entities and one is from a major corporation. The fourth laptop is just his personal one.