Problem with Finder Preferences

Hey folks,

I was having a problem with my black MacBook (early 2006) shutting down or restarting properly. I went through several fixes until I narrowed the problem down to Finder preferences.

When I trash the Finder preferences file, I'm able to restart and shut down fully. If I don't, the desktop disappears (after a brief instance of the spiral) and screen goes black. However, the system is remains on and the light in front of the MacBook remains on. I'm only able to turn off the computer by holding the power button.

The refreshed Finder preferences file after the reboot doesn't seem to do the trick.

I tried a program called "Clean the Finder Preferences" and that didn't do the trick.

Any suggestions would be highly appreciated. Thanks so much.

(I'm running Leopard 10.5.7 with all the updates installed.)

 

The pref file that Leopard generates after the reboot to replace the one I trashed won't work. I always have to trash it during every session in order to shut down/restart properly.

Everything else works fine.

I've tried:
Repairing disk permissions
Resetting PRAM
Resetting SMC