# [ANNOUNCE] Git for Windows 2.56.0

1 messages from 2026-09-28 to 2026-09-28. Participants: Johannes Schindelin.
Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/66413

## Johannes Schindelin, 2026-09-28 20:52

Subject: [ANNOUNCE] Git for Windows 2.56.0
Message-ID: <1MPGVx-1xNaxf235h-00IPfN@mail.gmx.net>

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Dear Git users,

I hereby announce that Git for Windows 2.56.0 is available from:

    https://gitforwindows.org/

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.
  * 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.
  * git difftool will no longer crash upon encountering filenames that
    are illegal on Windows.

Git-2.56.0-64-bit.exe | bfe94e7b419b16eee9fecbd1253a98e3d4f49ba8f029630549052278ffe286a6
Git-2.56.0-arm64.exe | c130c04301d06995ef08f1cbd895342844d1fbb3312f5d32cb27cc05b4b394dc
PortableGit-2.56.0-64-bit.7z.exe | eceb5e061aa90df2f69ddd3e90f0030e1b8037a7829934bc40e4be1caa1accc1
PortableGit-2.56.0-arm64.7z.exe | edd9bd32aefa5d2bd4b938c38c18ceca306a7f6b29a6951cd6a4bb16d9d28d8f
MinGit-2.56.0-64-bit.zip | 064b440ff870ed5198527e8f3a92cdf5bd2fd0fedf5e718af95e3fdaddeff718
MinGit-2.56.0-arm64.zip | cb3b0f2d486ea52673227151a5baf5bc13861ff80e74e94e46d614d1bfcd5c06
MinGit-2.56.0-32-bit.zip | 9f8266486c8818b91cbb6b719e35972a406f7560e86b82fbda2f3dcb7c069f12
MinGit-2.56.0-busybox-64-bit.zip | 2d432c98e9eee92161f49006a18cba24b33e142c6050be321236910805466f37
MinGit-2.56.0-busybox-arm64.zip | 6e58f3338a4445ffd30a738359ed2eff1e31273f643d996f26bf663f05850663
MinGit-2.56.0-busybox-32-bit.zip | 853aea4977c510f9b2f60da0fab0607ddc4111193f266ee8f1c1fc36429e8a70
Git-2.56.0-64-bit.tar.bz2 | fdf531fb5c003fff0fed1b3ef282134c9186518f284c2e10860214ce127a973b
Git-2.56.0-arm64.tar.bz2 | c86aeb1afe43d2d5afc27c4586a10795a3e28e4ddf03cdd944dfb248526bae3d

Ciao,
Johannes

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