Windows 8.1 connects to random guest network

[alizee]

My new ThinkPad is working well, except when I'm at home it automatically connects to some random belkin.guest network that one of my neighbors has set up. I have only two networks in my list of connect automatically (home and school), and that is not one of them. How do I make it stop connecting?

 

[corkyg]

Go into your network settings, highlight that network and choose Never Connect or remove from list.

 

[code65536]

The Windows 8.1 WiFi connection manager will connect to a network if and only if 1) you've connected to it before and 2) you checked the box to automatically connect to that network. That box is checked by default only for password-protected networks; it is unchecked by default for public guest networks, so if it's connecting automatically, then you had explicitly told it to do so. Furthermore, automatic connection to any network is disabled whenever you explicitly disconnect from that network (vs. automatically disconnecting when you power off, turn on airplane mode, move out of range, etc.) so that if you wish to reconnect afterwards, you must do so explicitly. So you don't even have to go into any settings--you need only to manually disconnect.

In short, the problem you are describing isn't consistent with that of the Windows 8.1 WiFi connection manager, which behaves very intelligently with respect to things like this.

Is there a third-party WiFi connection manager installed on your system? They are, sadly, very common. Many WiFi drivers, if you install them from the EXE package, will install their own (poorly-written piece of crap) connection manager that overrides the one provided by Windows itself. Half-assed software, written by hardware companies whose competency is not in software, that they insist on installing because they are terrified of their product being just another generic commodity and want to "differentiate" themselves. This is why I always install WiFi drivers manually, using INF files and the Device Manager, so I don't pollute my systems with junk like that (I manually install most other drivers, too; touchpad, GPU, and audio are about the only ones I install from EXE because they are the only ones that actually need supporting third-party software).