Remember the C:\Users\"yourname"\.gimp-2.8\ folder has many different sub folders for your added resources.
The folder "brushes" for example would be where any downloaded gimp brushes would be placed with the extensions gih, and gbr.
gih is an animated brush (gimp image hose)
where gbr ( gimp brush) is a regular brush.
All your installed and added resources should always be placed in these provided resource sub folders. For example...
scm extensions go in the sub folder " scripts"
pat , gif, jpg, bmp, png , jpeg extensions go in the sub folder "patterns" if you download them as such.
exe, py, dll extensions go in the sub folder "plug-ins" . ADDING plug-ins requires a GIMP restart.
And so on and so forth. If you download a gradient file for gimp (ggr) it goes in the sub folder "gradients".
If you download and place these added resources in the programs/GIMP 2/ directory sub folders you may loose them all when re installing GIMP updates.
Hope that added information helps a little. If you need more help before installing resources just ask.
