To restore the default preference values for a user, execute the following command:
# gconftool-2 --direct --config-source user-configuration-source --recursive-unset
Replace user-configuration-source with the configuration source in the .gconf directory in the home directory of the user. For example:
# gconftool-2 --direct --config-source xml:readwrite:$(HOME)/.gconf --recursive-unset
This command resets the values of all preference keys, in all subdirectories, from the user setting to the setting in the default configuration source.