Git for Windows v2.56.0-rc2.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-rc2.
• 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-rc2-64-bit.exe	8e281eca0b4d911903ae6545016aa248d6a8322f0f794303d54039cfbe1707a2
Git-2.56.0-rc2-arm64.exe	ee47e6b1706554c574875ab143584e323971ae6a2c2089fc0ecf14b679b30d5c
PortableGit-2.56.0-rc2-64-bit.7z.exe	81f2718f7110bafefaaa8a996ae2236115ab20eaca86e3b00688981f967b1d59
PortableGit-2.56.0-rc2-arm64.7z.exe	b2ee9d4c4ebc260f798e40f02beaf9e0513675a10c97cd6f9470e53e73d41229
MinGit-2.56.0-rc2-64-bit.zip	30fb85a3fbdca441bbe9ec330f4ff0fa7a946f4ef6ade28ff8075ee16d584d47
MinGit-2.56.0-rc2-arm64.zip	3ad9ca61b8d69a4dd1e0e2abfce0f98dc261b0325038734d94997faa5af27f3d
MinGit-2.56.0-rc2-32-bit.zip	27d1e333008eb57b863a3b83f7f4f915397a52642d224faae658b109451ba698
MinGit-2.56.0-rc2-busybox-64-bit.zip	d90c636e0665ecbc5efef8aee9b0c6981c495b41f543a51d40eb7a3882a8fb40
MinGit-2.56.0-rc2-busybox-arm64.zip	f33b8f0603bf2f629eefa62bc8ed89490766f7a93946d62eebb84d38e1811716
MinGit-2.56.0-rc2-busybox-32-bit.zip	ca6fe419616abdc3c6d0758f11eba1afdf57e10194f76d5171309f802273463c
Git-2.56.0-rc2-64-bit.tar.bz2	1cf1e95599ff3534ae39bdb60d4fda2384382696148785b3c5e807ce0600b19d
Git-2.56.0-rc2-arm64.tar.bz2	1b07b5e7fb3f57de51e076984933480fda23243b060ed6afa5f74b12bbc22683

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This discussion was created from the release Git for Windows v2.56.0-rc2.windows.1.