Hi,
I'm running a fresh Debian Squeeze install.
the thing is, i tried e17 today and didn't really liked it. So i uninstalled it and logged out. I selected GNOME from the login GUI and when i logged in, the window borders were gone. Tried a lot of stuff, edited the .xinitrc and .xsession (both were blank) and added "exec gnome-session" but the same thing happens. I still see the top and bottom bar and windows open normally, I just can't resize and move them and all the borders along with the minimize/maximize/close buttons are gone. I tried logging out, uninstalled all the gnome packets (241 total) from aptitude and reinstalled gnome (again, 241 packets), and still, no luck. Really wanted to avoid a new install, please help..

Thanks in advance

Just created a new account and everything works fine here. Are there any files i could copy to the other so it works?

thanks

It appears that metacity isn't running when you start GNOME. When something like that happens to me (and it happens often enough, because I mess around a lot with my desktops), I open a folder on the desktop, navigate to /usr/bin, and double-click on my window manager of choice.

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thanks RockDoctor, after you told me i was actually using Metacity (lol) I used your advice and ran metacity from /usr/bin and it worked.

For the sake of completeness:
I also used gconf-editor to update the values in /desktop/gnome/applications/window_manager
- just added strings containing "metacity" (no ") to the fields "default" and "current".
and in /etc/X11/default-display-manager I added the full path to my display manager (the one you kindly provided - /usr/bin/metacity)

Thanks again RockDoctor!