How to restore lost Finder preferences in 10.6.5?

Question

Running 10.6.5 on a MacBook Pro 2.4Ghz i5.
In each Finder window, I had, over months and years, set up a specific setting according to my needs:
Some windows had different background color;
Some windows were set to list view, some to icon view;
Some had icons of a certain size, some had icons of a smaller or larger size;
Various windows were sized and arranged on the screen to meet various requirements;
and most importantly, in each window the icons in icon view were often arranged in a specific organizational pattern.
In fact, this is how I organized my work flow -- moving icons from one area of a Finder window to another to represent their various stages of completion in projects.
I've been using Finder this way for years, never a problem.
But after a recent Shut Down and Restart, for no apparent reason, ALL of my existing Finder preferences were wiped away for every window.
Now, all windows have been reset to have the same background color, all windows the same size and the same location on the screen, all be in icon view, have the icons all be the same (maximum) size, and worst of all all rearranged alphabetically in a grid. All my customization was wiped clean, and all windows reset to what I presume was the default appearance.
No data or files were lost, as far as I can tell. The computer seems to be functioning perfectly as it always does in every other way. The only thing that went wrong was that the Finder preferences were zeroed out and reset.
For most people, this really wouldn't be much of a problem, as they don't really use the Finder icons and windows to organize concepts and workflow as I do; but for me this is a disaster, because now I've lost track of all sorts of "information" encoded in how each window appeared and how icons were arranged.
I could laboriously by hand try to restore each window to how I thought it was, but there are literally hundreds or thousands of windows, each containing in some cases hundreds of icons representing hundreds of work files in various stages of completion, and the whole process would take me weeks to get it back to the way it was, and even then it would certainly be inaccurate, as I'd be relying on my memory.
So my question is: Is there any way to get back and restore my Finder preferences to the way they were before this mysterious "Finder Amnesia Event," or whatever it was? Or do i just resign myself to accepting this setback and go about restoring each window's set-up by hand?

Answer 1

No, probally not.
But there are security issues with 10.6.5 and you really need to Apple menu> Software Update to 10.6.8 right away.
Perhaps that's is what caused it?
Run a ClamXav scan.
Run through this list if you have problems
..Step by Step to fix your Mac