[CentOS] CentOS 5.2 - Nautilus - file types are not associated with an action and icons are not displayed

Hi all,

I use CentOS 5.2 as a desktop and the Gnome Nautilus doesn't display 
icons related to the file types and all associated actions ("open with") 
are lost. It is so bad, that the desktop shortcuts are displayed as 
ordinary files "Filesystem.desktop" or 
"openoffice.org-1.9-calc.desktop", and when I click on them, the 
Nautilus wants to know what it should do with these files.

The problem emerged after I installed the  new kernel 
(2.6.18-92.1.10.el5) and  uninstalled packages "joystick", "slrn" and 
"planner".  All user accounts have the same problem, when I run the 
Nautilus as root (sudo nautilus), it works fine => probably some access 
restrictions.

I run the Nautilus with strace, but the output is too messy to provide 
some sensible information. Any hint what to do is welcomed.

Best  Regards

Vaclav