xfce4 setup lost

[Crisu]

Hello everybody!
I have been using (mostly x- since I have an old machine but also some k-)Ubuntu for some time now and I have even gotten to the point of kicking the windows partition on my computer because I was very satisfied with my last xubuntu 8.04.

Anyway, here's the problem I have run into: I have lost most of how I set up the desktop, but curiously not everything:
lost:
- keyboard layouts and their switch. I was using 4 different and it took me for ever to figure out how to do that. Now it is en_us which was not the previous default.
not lost:
- panel position and behaviour
- panel shortcut widgets
lost:
- functionality of all those widgets and their symbols (e.g. firefox shortcut on panel)
- firefox shortcuts (not (all) the history)
- ... ?

I haven't checked everything yet, but this is what has my attention so far. I also have not bothered yet of reconfiguring everything, since I suspect that one of two things will happens:
1. it's fixable and I can re-establish everything the way it was
2. it's not fixable and likely or -badly enough- possible to happen again and I am better off re-installing the whole operating system.



Any help is very much appreciated!
Thank you, Crisu

[Crisu]

What I didn't mention is that I have this problem since I burnt something with K3B. It didn't finish the burn, it hung up after creating the iso. Not sure if that is connected.