Dock items rest at login

Hi,
Recently, my dock preferences are reset each time I login. The applications in the dock are reset to the default apps (all the iLife apps, Quicktime, photobooth, the Apple "spring" web shortcut), despite me having removed them and customising things a bit.
The dock size and magnification settings are also reset.
Further to that, I use KDE installed via Fink. Again, all of my user set preferences are reset to the defaults.
I'm presuming some config files in my home directory are not being read and/or are somehow corrupt.
I can't think of any change I have made recently which may have caused this.
I'm a relative newbie to Mac OS - any help is appreciated, esp. if it saves me reinstalling...
Lew

Hi LewBoy
In Finder click on Home then Library then Preferences and locate com.apple.dock.plist and drag it to the desktop.
Log out and log back in again, and make some changes to the Dock.
Log out and log back in again, and see if they now stick.
If they do trash the .plist file that is on the Desktop
regards roam

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