The first story, Octopussy, follows Bond as he's sent to Jamaica to bring in Major Dexter Smythe, who had murdered an Austrian mountain guide (and childhood mentor of Bond) in order to steal a cache of Nazi gold. The story is mostly told in flashback, and has Smythe as the main point-of-view character, who has been drinking heavily since his wife's suicide and is taking care of an octopus which gives the story its title.
Octopussy was the title of the thirteenth Bond film, released in 1983. However, it's not really a direct adaptation, but uses the events of the short story as a backstory. Bond is sent to investigate a smuggling ring in India, where he meets a smuggler known Octopussy. It's then revealed that Octopussy is Major Smythe's daughter, who is indebted to Bond for allowing her father to end his life on his own terms rather than go back to England and face a court martial.
Next, we have The Property of a Lady, which was originally written in 1963 after being commissioned by Sotheby's, and first published in their annual journal, The Ivory Hammer. Bond is sent to Sotheby's to attend the auction of a Faberge egg, which is being used to pay a known KGB double agent in London. Bond's mission is to identify the agents handler, who may be deliberately underbidding in order to drive up the price.
The events of The Property of a Lady were used in the film adaptation of Octopussy, and expanded upon. In the film, Bond attends the auction of the Faberge egg after a counterfeit one was found on a dead British agent who had arrived at the British embassy in East Berlin. The title is also referenced in the lot title. Instead of a KGB agent, Bond identifies the exiled Afghan prince Kamal Khan, and travels to India to investigate him further.
It's likely that the filmmakers felt they didn't have enough to work with in both those short stories. A similar thing happened with For Your Eyes Only, which used events from the short stories For Your Eyes Only and Risico, along with an unused element from Live and Let Die.
In The Living Daylights, Bond is assigned to assist a defector in Berlin, providing sniper cover as he crosses a No Man's Land. He's also assigned to eliminate a KGB assassin known only as "Trigger", who will try and kill the defector. Bond then discovers that Trigger is a cellist from an all-female orchestra he'd seen travelling to rehearsal, and disobeys orders by disarming her instead of killing her.
The Living Daylights was the fifteenth film in the series, released in 1987. Again, this one tried to expand the story. The setting is moved from Berlin to Bratislava, but pretty much follows the events of the short story. While the short story implied that the cellist was an assassin, the film makes Bond suspect that she wasn't an assassin and that the defection was staged. So when the defector, General Koskov, is seemingly abducted by the KGB from the MI6 safehouse, Bond seeks out the cellist, Kara Milovy. What follows is a story reminiscent of The Third Man.
Finally, we have 007 in New York. Which is just a travel journal with a recipe for scrambled eggs. Go figure.
Well, that about wraps it up. Looking over these, I'd say that there were plenty of reasons for making changes in the film adaptations. This could be from having little material to work with, or the need to sanitise the stories.
Happy writing.
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