Wrong file icons - files won't open when double-clicked

Hello,
I have a the following problem on a powerbook.
Most picture files (JPGs, but not bearing the .jpg extension) are not reckognised any more by the system.
In fact, they bear an icon of Terminal exec (a black square with a green "exec" note in the corner).
When double-clicked, they don't open in Preview any more, they act as a terminal app, and won't launch, obviously.
The only way to open them is to go the hard way : in Preview, File menu, Open...
Another way is to change their names by including the ".jpg" extensions, which seems to wake up the id from the system and place back the correct icon and app link. But we have 1000's of pictures...
Painful.
We tried rebuilding OS X desktop, repairing permissions, and update prebinding (using the excellent ToolsX 3.4). No results yet.
Any idea someone?
Thanks,
Powerbook 17 1GHz   Mac OS X (10.4.3)  

Have you tried selecting a picture, doing command i, for info, then in the info window setting the app for that file as Preview then clicking Change All?
Does ToolsX have a "Rebuild Launch Services database" function
or an update for "whatis" and "Locate" databases?

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