Well, i turned on the column headers for everything that has to do with sharing. On the host, the drives show the same thing. Shared YES, Shared with my name + Homegroup, Sharing Status SHARED. On the remote (laptop), the drives show the same thing, which is pretty much blank except for Sharing Status NOT SHARED. (which i guess is normal because its not the laptop that is broadcasting its sharing).
So maybe this has to do with screwed up NTFS permissions somewhere? Otherwise, WHY (even if normal) does the File Explorer show those duplicates on my laptop? Whats the use? I already see them under Libraries... it just makes my tree longer, more cluttered and confusing. Can I turn the visiblity off so that I only see the ones under the Libraries?
SIDE NOTE: I just went into my Win 8.1 PC Settings --> Network --> HomeGroup and everything was turned off (Docs, Pics, etc). So how come I was able to share despite these switches being OFF?