can we infer from that that there are some changes of which you are indeed a fan?

The vast majority of the time, my use-cases are pretty simple. So, thus far, what I've noticed is the change to how copying out an area of an image seems to work and how moving a chunk of an image works. The changes to both are unpleasant and have me looking to find time to look up to see if there's any kind of user-settings that allow me to revert their behaviors.

At any rate, I've been using Gimp for a looooooong time (sometime in the 2000-2004 timeframe)? I eventually get used to changes, just that some changes can be really jarring when the effect "finger memory".

yeah, and it's a tradeoff. Floating selections were a definite hurdle for newcomers, but you can still use control-shift-L to float a selection.

There's also a bug on Windows (i think ony Windows?) that causes paste sometimes to make an image-sized layer, we hope to fix in the next release.

Ok, so, today I'm noticing that my "brushes" and "toolbox" windows seem to keep disappearing every time I switch from Gimp to another app in the same desktop or switch to a different virtual desktop. So, every time I come back to #Gimp, I have to click on the "windows" menu and reactivate the "brushes" and "toolbox" windows. Wasn't doing that yesterday. Really flow-breaking (even more than the previously-noted changes).

OS Name:                   Microsoft Windows 11 Pro
OS Version:                10.0.22631 N/A Build 22631
OS Manufacturer:           Microsoft Corporation
OS Configuration:          Standalone Workstation
OS Build Type:             Multiprocessor Free

is this in single window mode or multi-window mode (check in the GIMP Window menu)?

It’s best to report problems on our bug tracker - you can find it at the foot of www.gimp.org - rather than here.

If multi-window mode, they might be behind the main gimp window; maybe explore edit/preferences/window management, and see if it helps.

multi window. I always use multi window mode.

They're not behind any other windows: I use virtual desktops with Gimp set to appear in all virtual desktops: if I switch desktops, the edit window shows up, but the floating windows disappear.

Only just started happening a couple hours before my last post.

hmm, if it suddenly started happening, what changed? I’d start by checking edit/preferences/window management. There might also be another program interering (NVidia shadowplay is a frequent example but there are others)