msysgit installer is broken on vista

OK, it isn’t exactly broken, it just doesn’t know about vista’s virtual path features. This means you can run the exe as a non-admin user and it does not get installed properly.

The work around is to not run the installer as a regular use and wait for UAC to invoke itself. It never will. Instead, save the .exe file and right click on it and choose "Run as administrator…"

Now the program will actually get installed to C:\Program Files or C:\Program Files (x86) instead of the virtual are c:\Programs\data\user\blah\wahterver\it\is\vista\has\some\crazy\features.

Why am I using GIT? Well, unfortunately because I have to. Cloning was easy enough but just typing git help or git help clone and I immediately miss the polish of bazaar. The "I have to" is in reference to the no longer ignorable myriad of projects now hosted at github. IMNSHO all of these should have opted to be hosted a launchpad. But as we have seen in the past in technology, the best solutions don’t always win. Sometimes the solution with the loudest voice wins. (VHS>Beta?) (DAT>DCC?) (Blueray>HDDVD?)

2 thoughts on “msysgit installer is broken on vista”

  1. Jay,
    I ran up against the same problems. I’ve tried uninstalling and re-installing about 4 times now and still can’t git it!

    Any advice on how to do a “clean uninstall?” [Maybe that’s it.)

    Thanks in advance,
    Wayne

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