Git for Windows v2.56.0-rc0.windows.1

[gitforwindowshelper[bot]]

Changes since Git for Windows v2.55.0(5) (August 20th 2026)

Following the MSYS2 project, on which Git for Windows is based, Windows 8.1 support was dropped; In doing so, internal paths changed (/mingw64/bin/git.exe does not exist anymore, /ucrt64/bin/git.exe takes its role; if this breaks your setups, consider switching to /cmd/git.exe instead, which is guaranteed to stay stable).

An issue with the installer for the previous version (v2.55.0.windows.5) caused the "Use external OpenSSH" option to be disabled for some users. This caused the bundled version of OpenSSH to be installed and overwrote any previously-saved choice of external OpenSSH. If you rely on an external OpenSSH installation, and you updated to v2.55.0(5), you should consider re-running the latest installer with "Only show new options" unchecked so that you can re-enable the external OpenSSH option. The bundled version of OpenSSH will be uninstalled automatically. If you do not rely on an external OpenSSH installation, or you did not install v2.55.0(5) specifically, you can safely ignore this notice.

New Features

• Comes with Git v2.56.0-rc0.
• Comes with Git LFS v3.8.0.
• Comes with cURL v8.22.0.
• Comes with OpenSSL v3.5.8.

Bug Fixes

• The installer is now actually a 64-bit one, which fixes the problem that the external OpenSSH option was broken in Git for Windows v2.55.0(5) (see notice above).
• It is now finally possible to commit 4GB objects or larger in Git for Windows.
• Fixes a bug where parallel checkouts could abort with "*** stack smashing detected ***: terminated".
• A bug introduced in Git for Windows v2.55.0(5), which caused vim to often open existing files with the first line missing, was fixed.

Filename	SHA-256
Git-2.56.0-rc0-64-bit.exe	ca232e593845909100b7f27368b79e737b879c809743d3b1c11bb6b5e1087ed7
Git-2.56.0-rc0-arm64.exe	4f1b761f0ed7f199958e1c3d74820f698a70ef45b0dd4635cb28237e7317175f
PortableGit-2.56.0-rc0-64-bit.7z.exe	c1e230bbadf9682206ddee9d2e22ccb6141edd0a2e37cbe053903a4456a55ee5
PortableGit-2.56.0-rc0-arm64.7z.exe	7dd3bdfe691b5df001cf137d2409be21f10acb655847e6a90b40e2e697b935c2
MinGit-2.56.0-rc0-64-bit.zip	46075a604af4fcd22e1221dd3b880e119734531f66c55cc25fbeabfcafa109c8
MinGit-2.56.0-rc0-arm64.zip	5dc3c2ab2776f37e4fd8520eed4fb5ff3c9a7d950910119b3ea111aeca587ebb
MinGit-2.56.0-rc0-32-bit.zip	65788c0a4fe18d2e78960b37e4c9458819bca0ee078c2535c0c5b0937b1c5400
MinGit-2.56.0-rc0-busybox-64-bit.zip	2d2c5942afcf961140606d13efe99d751fc00e3190c30712e64bae412f081115
MinGit-2.56.0-rc0-busybox-arm64.zip	76b634035a81f48a8cd08bd5e674a8135bbb9c7a8133f96d669aa0adae8c8e18
MinGit-2.56.0-rc0-busybox-32-bit.zip	6b879893d67762a0c89c9370c3fbdb56459a477db570b2cf6befce966ef04497
Git-2.56.0-rc0-64-bit.tar.bz2	4d07eb3ed5a6499be9a850c1fa1161dd4678ddc2d72d2856252355f2753dbbc8
Git-2.56.0-rc0-arm64.tar.bz2	24987a73bd1a6f10e37607c452a6d14c05e22d113ef02879af8eb435cc36b93e

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This discussion was created from the release Git for Windows v2.56.0-rc0.windows.1.

[dscho]

Heh, I found an issue rather immediately... Trying to push, I got this:

C:/Program\ Files/Git/mingw64/bin/git-credential-manager.exe get: line 1: C:/Program Files/Git/mingw64/bin/git-credential-manager.exe: No such file or directory

The reason is that I hard-coded that git-credential-manager.exe in my global config ages ago. Not sure how many other peeps have the same issue. If we get a substantial number of reports, we should probably hack in a warning and a fall-back to .../ucrt64/bin/git-credential-manager.exe (if it exists)...