Cannot turn off 'automatically connect' option on WIFI connections

Hi.

The problems I'm having with the 'Automatically connect to this network' are:

1. When enabled, my desktop automatically connects even when my desktop is connected via Ethernet to my modem/router, causing internet access to be absent for a minute or so after my PC wakes up.  Eventually, the desktop disconnects from the wifi network.
2. It's on by default for networks that haven't been previously connected to, and cannot be turned off for those networks.
3. It gets synced between PCs (running Windows 8.1 Update, possibly others), and there's no obvious way to disable just this.  So if I disable this on my desktop, my laptop won't connect to wifi, and if I enable it on my laptop, my desktop gets its internet disrupted.

I have a similar problem, in that I can disable the Connect Automatically option ONLY for networks that I have connected to.  All other (i.e. neighbouring) networks have the Connect Automatically option turned on, and I CANNOT change this - if I turn them off, they just come back on again the next time I check.

The reason this is a problem for me is that I've had another bug that's related to this.  Every time I woke upmy computer (I put it to sleep rather than shut it down) it would take awhile before I could connect to the internet, even though I was connected to my modem/router via a wired Ethernet connection.  I traced it to my computer trying to connect to several wireless LANs automatically, even though there's a wired connection and even though it never ultimately connected to any of the WLANs.  It seems that while it is trying to connect to a wireless LAN, it cannot connect to the internet over Ethernet.  I disabled Connect Automatically for all my own wireless LAN networks, and succeeded, and tried to do so for all other nearby wireless networks, and failed.  The problem has largely gone but comes back every so often.

I have an HP Pavilion p6755a PC with a Ralink wireless LAN card using driver version 5.0.37.0 by Ralink Technology Corp.  The ethernet card is a RealTek PCIe GBE Family Controller with driver version 8.2.612.2012 by Realtek.

UPDATE: Just tried to update the Ethernet driver and it 'updated' the driver to 8.1.510.2013 by Microsoft.  The 8.2.612.2012 version came from HP's support site where it's still listed.  The wireless LAN card driver doesn't have an update.

This I think is either really strange or normal.

I have windows 8 on my notebook and an Inter Centrino N-2230 wireless adapter.

Recently, all WIFI connections that appear as available have the 'connect automatically' option checked. I uncheck the box, but they automatically get checked again.  I am sure that previously, all wifi connections had the box unchecked by default.

However this is NOT the case with the one wifi connection I primarily use, ie my home cable connection. I can uncheck the option for this one and it stays unchecked. Bizarre.

I am a bit concerned that if I use my notebook near an unsecured connection, it will automatically connect to this without my knowing resulting in security concerns.

Any idea if this is an issue, and how to resolve it?

Thanks

No matter how I uncheck "Connect Automatically" to other WiFi accounts my PC (Windows 8.1) still tries to connect to the detected WiFi accounts and I cannot change my account to "Connect Automatically" and all accounts, which automatically show :checked" continue to be checked so my PC searches them all for a connection before mine. Attempts to uncheck the other accounts just fail. Help! A Windows bug or am I missing something that should be obvious?

I decided to give OPTION #1 a go. All other SSID's disappeared from the list.  I've since rebooted and it still appears to have held. I no longer see any SSID's listed except my own.  So, provided you are comfortable using the Command Line .....................

Gears