Question : Problem: Reset  Monitor Color Profile

Hi--
I plug my HP Pavilion laptop into a Dell LCD monitor when I am at home.  It's on the older side, probably 5-6 years.  The color was average-looking, but didn't really match the colors that my printer was outputting.  I have been learning and using Photoshop more lately, so I had the great idea to mess with the color profiles (my OS is Vista 32-bit).  Now, I have completely messed up the display and it looks AWFUL.  I have searched website after website to try to reset it, but I may have changed the default settings along the way (I honestly have no idea) and even when I uncheck the box 'use my settings' (which the Microsoft website said to do when you want to use the factory settings) but nothing looks any better.  The color is heavily saturated and doesn't seem to change much no matter what I do.  I just want it to look the way it used to--even though it wasn't great, it looked a lot better than it does now!!  My main questions:
1. What are the 'real' default color settings that Vista ships with?  (to find out if I changed these too)
2. The monitor appears as a 'Generic PnP' monitor, (don't have the rest of the details at hand right now)--but it appears on the hardware list the same way the laptop's display looks (i.e. when the monitor is plugged in it just adds a 'copy' of the laptop display...
3. What profile will produce the most 'normal' looking colors (doesn't need to be perfect, just not completely skewed!)
Any help would be greatly appreciated--I am going crazy with this!

Answer : Problem: Reset  Monitor Color Profile

Please make screenshots of the dialoques around the box 'use my settings' , so of tabs devices, all profiles and advanced. Maybe then someone knows what's going on. You could also inform us if you have downloaded and applied an .icm file for your display already - chances are, there does not exist one.