configuration

["Aisen, Alex M." <aaisen iupui edu>]

My installation of Gnome 1.0 (from the binary rpm's) to my RedHat system
running the 2.2.3 kernal has become corrupted such that the application
launchers in the panel at the bottom of my screen have vanished.  Further,
if I create a new Unix user account , when that user first logs on, and the
"exec gnome-session" in the .Xclients file executes for the first time, a
new gnome desktop is set up.  This desktop does not contain any application
icons (launchers) either, except for the Gnome menu lanucher.  The usual
defaults (Netscape, gnome terminal, control panel, etc) do not appear.

Where are the default panel configurations stored, both for users, and the
default template that is used to set up new user accounts?

Presumably, I should be RTFMing rather than posting trivial questions like
this; where is the configuration process for gnome described?

Thanks!!