Solved Whack media devices appear in Win8.1 Explorer

Hi - Just jumped from 8.0 to 8.1 and all is well except Explorer is whack.

Please see attached jpg, which shows the 12 extra networked machines and the 10 extra media shares.

I don't know any of those people! The list changes from time to time, but always 100% strangers.

A cosmetic fix is interesting, but not top priority. I can live with seeing weird extra screen clutter.

I can't live with a security hole. I need to understand, please, who did what to make these extra items appear in Explorer (both panes).

A wild guess: Skydrive. I haven't yet configured it, haven't yet a single Skydrive clue. Maybe the extra items are being shown to me by Skydrive... But if so, could that cut both ways? That is, without me knowing it, is my machine showing up in Explorer on other people's machines?

Any help from you gurus much appreciated

thanks, Bruce
I'm a brand-new member, 1st post. I did search around before posting, and apologize if my search skills were noob

I found one solution, which is to disable SkyDrive

See: http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/29426-skydrive-integration-windows-8-1-enable-disable.html

It didn't take full effect right away. Initially I thought it didn't work, so unfortunately I didn't take notes on how many reboots/Explorer-restarts are required before it does take full effect.

At some point I suppose it will be desirable to start using SkyDrive, so if anyone comes up with a better solution to the stranger-devices, a solution that doesn't require disabling SkyDrive, please share.

thanks, Bruce

You are saying that all these networked machine's aren't even in your local network?

I've certainly never see SkyDrive cause a problem like this one. I'd say there are some other problems involved in this case.

Ah, that is a very good question, thank you

I'm in a hotel. It is possible the hotel has a local network. I don't know how to check that, as the front desk staff are less technical than I, which is not a knock on them, they aren't paid to be network gurus.

I've been in this hotel before, last November and also last April. Windows 8.0 on my exact same laptop never behaved that way in this building.

Lot's of possible explanations. Maybe doing the upgrade changed something. Maybe the hotel network changed something. Maybe a bunch of hotel guests are now here with Windows 8.1 machines. Maybe maybe whatever maybe...

I went through network settings on my laptop and made sure network discovery is now off and set every other thing I found to tightest-security.

I'm ready to chalk this up to "behavior of unexpectedly present local network" and mark it closed.

thanks, Bruce