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Frequently Asked Questions
We try to follow the git release schedule. When a core msysGit contributor reads that there is a new release, we try to update Git for Windows to the current 'next' branch of git.git.
We then run /share/msysGit/run-tests.sh (which is basically a slightly pimped up "make test" in /git/). Typically, there are one or two failures which we try to investigate, or send a message to the msysGit mailing list mentioning which tests need to be shown some love.
Once the person starting the process (we are very loose on procedures, basically the first person having time, the others realize from "git fetch"ing that the process was started) is reasonably happy with the test suite, he or she makes the packages (using /share/WinGit/release.sh, /share/WinGit/portable-release.sh, /share/msysGit/net/release.sh and /share/msysGit/full/release.sh) and uploads them to GoogleCode and sends a message to the msysGit and the Git mailing list.
MSys is an environment for Windows offering a Unix-type shell and a Perl interpreter. Because many parts of Git are still not builtins programmed in C, but instead shell and Perl scripts, Git for Windows needs such an environment.
Therefore we ship Git for Windows with a very minimal version of MSys.
MSys is also required to build Git, as we re-use the same Unix-type setup upstream Git uses. We ship a more complete MSys environment, including GCC, as build environment (which is therefore nick-named ''msysGit'').
We compile Git as a pure MinGW program, though, i.e. a program without any link-dependencies on anything but standard Windows libraries. So unless you need to use any parts of Git that are still implemented only as shell or Perl scripts, you can get away with running plain git.exe.
For technical reasons, Git for Windows cannot create files or directories when the absolute path is longer than 260 characters.
See e.g. this thread