VNC viewer does not show the top panel

[medimont]

Hello,

I used to connect to a linux machine in our university from my Laptop with windows 7 using Putty and VNC viewer and it was fine. After I intalled the new version of Ubuntu on another computer and tried to connect to the same machine in the university, this time VNC viewer does not show the top panel. Also the bottom task bar is missing.

The rest of the screen is fine. I have "Computer", "...'s Home" and other icons. and by right-clicking on the screen I can get a terminal. I spent more than 5-6 hours on forums and have tried any change in the xstartup file in .vnc/ but still I think the trick is some change in this file.

One more thing: after being connected by VNCviewer and running the command "gnome-panel", I get this error message: "I've detected a panel already running. and will now exit."

Now I have the same problem everywhere even when I am using Putty and VNC viewer from Laptop.

please HELP!

[B]

Break it down. First thing to check is whether you can get into the target, when on the same local LAN, WITHOUT putty involved (you may have to ask permission of the university IT staff to be able to make that change). When you say you can get a terminal, do you mean an X terminal session on that target machine after putty is successfully connected? What are the ports and display numbers involved in your VNC server settings?

Separate suggestion; have you tried FreeNX instead? It should perform much faster than VNC.