i'm have been using GNOME for 2 month but it's failing for some reason.sometimes when i log in , my desktop is blank without icons or wallpaper and i cann't right click on the desktop. at the same time , i'm able to use the applets i set up. the desktop is just blacking out on me for some reason and it's not usable anymore. i resolved this issue once by deleting /root/.gnome , /root/.gnome2 , /root/gnome2_private directories from my home folder in order to reset gnome again. but it's not reasonable to delet your settings evertime you need your desktop running.... i guess i need your on this .... thanks

And what heppens when you run as a normal user (anyway you shouldn't be running as root).

yes i'm running as a root , but i tried that on another user and it did the same thing.when i log in now , i'm getting a message that nautilus failed to start and it need to restart. it's not able to restart itself alll the time so i have to reboot the machine and try it again and again untile it works .... do you think that i can unistall nautilus and reinstall it again ? i don't know if this might mess up GNOME in general. acctually, i don't like working on KDE and i prefer to stay working on Gnome since it is faster. do think this problem is fexibale ..... thanks ....

Did you upgrade anything recently especially gnome related packages? If so, this could be the cause of your problem. I can't really think of anything else that would just stop nautilus from working.