Windows 8.1 RTM Installation Nightmare

Hello All,

This is my first post here. Glad to be aboard. I have a Gateway desktop and a Dell laptop on a network sharing some files together and syncing both with SkyDrive. Both were running WIN 7 Ultimate. Since I'm a TechNet member, I played around with WIN 8 on the laptop a couple of times, but didn't like it so I stuck with 7 until today, when I upgraded both the desktop and laptop to 8.1 Pro RTM. I was presented with just two upgrade options since I was upgrading from 7: move the user data files only to 8.1, or retain nothing. I chose to transfer the user data files after saving my user folder to a second drive on the desktop for backup. Anyhow, the upgrades went well - or so I thought, until I discovered that every data file on the desktop computer, where I kept them all stored on the HD, using the SkyDrive folder to access data from the laptop, were in duplicate: the duplicate files having "Don-PC" added to the filenames. My 19,000 mp3 files became 38,000 mp3 files, and etc. for the text files, photos, and videos! I deleted the mp3 files and replaced them with the originals which I had saved for backup, because my music player/manager had 18,000 songs names and another 18,000 exclamation marks in the songs list ... not good! At any rate, I thought before doing anything else I'd better find out what is going on and if the duplicate files might be placeholder files for SkyDrive or something? Does anyone have a clue what's going on? And how can you tell when and if SkyDrive is syncing? Also, I have been pointing both computers to the synced Favorites folder on SkyDrive to have the same Favorites on both computers, but they don't show from the Menu Bar of either computer. Only the Favorites Bar and Side Bar show the Favorites. The Menu Bar Favorites drop-down is empty. Can anyone help with that?

Sorry for the long and rambling post, but it's been a hectic and very frustrating day, and I'm confused. Thanks for any help.

Don