Solved
How do I have the “Background” appear as a separate Dialog Box?
In the past, the “Background” appeared as a separate Dialog Box. Now it covers the “Chat” comments. How do I have the “Background” appear as a separate Dialog Box?
In the current Zoom Workplace client, Background & effects now opens as a side panel instead of the old standalone dialog box — that's a layout change, and there isn't a setting to permanently restore the previous separate-dialog view.
If you want to access the full settings as a separate window (rather than the in-meeting side panel), you can go outside the meeting and click your profile picture → Settings → Video & effects → Virtual backgrounds, which opens the full Settings window on its own.
That said, this is a workaround rather than a true fix — if your goal is specifically to keep Chat visible while adjusting your background during a meeting, the new side-panel layout doesn't currently support that, since there's no "always open Background settings as a separate dialog" option