CentOS - Nov 2010 - centos 5.5--gnome desktop--all icons disappeared.

gang, I feel dumb having to ask this...

I've got a Centos 5.5 installation (it's not new, I've been using it
for
over a year on this machine) and all of a sudden just a few minutes ago
everything on the gnome desktop disappeared. no icons, right-click doesn't
bring up a context menu. the panels are still there, though, thank goodness.

tried logging off and back on but that didn't help. I'm perusing the
centos forums for clues, and thought I should ask all of you too in
parallel.

Suggestions appreciated, thanks in advance!

Fred
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fred smith ?????:
> gang, I feel dumb having to ask this...
>
> I've got a Centos 5.5 installation (it's not new, I've been
using it for
> over a year on this machine) and all of a sudden just a few minutes ago
> everything on the gnome desktop disappeared. no icons, right-click
doesn't
> bring up a context menu. the panels are still there, though, thank
goodness.
>
> tried logging off and back on but that didn't help. I'm perusing
the
> centos forums for clues, and thought I should ask all of you too in
> parallel.
>
> Suggestions appreciated, thanks in advance!
>
> Fred
>    
Check the result of

$ gconftool-2 -R /apps/nautilus/preferences | grep show_desktop

and, if it give you "show_desktop = false", turn the show_desktop on:

$ gconftool-2 --set /apps/nautilus/preferences/show_desktop -t bool true

this should give your desktop with icons and context menus back.