home files on desktop

[Tom H]

>  > One of my users managed to display all her $HOME files and dirs on her
>  > desktop, although ~/Desktop is empty. How can this happen?

>> Look for the variable XDG_DESKTOP_DIR in ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs .

> that was it - although I still don't understand how an unexperienced user,
> ignorant about the command line, can have changed this.

Someone suggested
gconftool --set --type bool \
/apps/nautilus/preferences/desktop_is_home_dir false

You can do the same thing in a GUI by launching gconf-editor from
alt-f2, navigating to that key and changing it.