@Otis Hulbert: I also see the Preference window pop up in the manner you describe, although not every time.
One further observation: before the problem manifested itself this evening, I had started Inkscape and it took an extremely long time for the window to appear (2 minutes +) even though the process was live in the Task Manager. Normally Inkscape fully starts in 2-3 s off my SSD.
@Otis Hulbert: I also see the Preference window pop up in the manner you describe, although not every time.
One further observation: before the problem manifested itself this evening, I had started Inkscape and it took an extremely long time for the window to appear (2 minutes +) even though the process was live in the Task Manager. Normally Inkscape fully starts in 2-3 s off my SSD.
GC