Gnome 1.4 Desktop Launch Problem -- Suse 8.0

[calvin-gnome-devel-list eigenvision com]

Howdy folks,

This may be the wrong list for this question.
But I'm guessing that the people reading this
list are most likely able to answer my
question.

I installed gnome updates from: 
  ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/supplementary/GNOME/update_for_8.0


Things seem to work, except the icons on my gnome desktop
no longer launch. The .desktop files have an icon, but the launch
files with xml content are just white rectangles with text thumbnails.
If I put a bash shell script in ~/.gnome-desktop
the launcher seems to be ok with it. It prompts for execute/view.

Can it be a mime-types problem?

in the "control center -> file types and programs " I have:

description	      mimetype				extension	Default action

application launcher  application/x-gnome-app-info	.desktop	none


I'm not sure if I need to change the default action or what I would
change it to.


I ran 'rpm -V' on each of the gnome RPMs. All dependencies seem to be
met.

Execution is fine from the panels. I just cant launch from the
desktop. I've been pounding at it for about a day. The problem
seems resistant to my particular strain of gross ignorance.

Can anyone tell me where to look for the secret decoder ring? Thanks.

Cheers,

--Peter