Dear Git users,

I hereby announce that Git for Windows 2.56.0-rc0 is available from:

    https://github.com/git-for-windows/git/releases/tag/v2.56.0-rc0.windows.1

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.

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

Ciao, Johannes