Windows

Installing on Windows

This page outlines the installation of the gitflow scripts on the three major distributions of git. Please follow the directions for your git distribution.

For Windows users, Git for Windows is a good starting place for installing git. Git for Windows also includes Git-flow.

Cygwin

For Windows users who wish to use the automated install, it is suggested that you install Cygwin first to install tools like git, util-linux and wget (with those three being packages that can be selected during installation). Then simply run this command from a Cygwin shell in your $HOME:

$ wget -q -O - --no-check-certificate https://github.com/nvie/gitflow/raw/develop/contrib/gitflow-installer.sh | bash

If you are on a restricted user account, you can switch the installation location with the INSTALL_PREFIX environment variable:

    $ export INSTALL_PREFIX=$USERPROFILE/bin
    # Run wget command above

Of course, the location you install to should be in $PATH

If you get the error "flags: FATAL unable to determine getopt version" error after

$ git flow init

you need to install the util-linux package using the Cygwin setup.

If you get something like "$'\r': command not found" then it's a problem with your line endings. You should run the following:

$  sed -i 's/\n\r/\n/mg' /usr/local/bin/git-flow*
$  sed -i 's/\n\r/\n/mg' /usr/local/bin/gitflow-*

If the above doesn't work for you (as it didn't in my case), you can use the command dos2unix (can be installed via Cygwin setup):

$ dos2unix /usr/local/bin/git-flow*
$ dos2unix /usr/local/bin/gitflow-*

Git for Windows (previously MSysGit)

Download and install getopt.exe from the util-linux package into C:\Program Files\Git\bin. (Only getopt.exe, the others util-linux files are not used). Also install libintl3.dll and libiconv2.dll from the Dependencies packages (libintl and libiconv), into the same directory.

Clone the git-flow sources from GitHub:

$ git clone --recursive git://github.com/nvie/gitflow.git
$ cd gitflow

NB. if you have to access Git over https, run this command to automatically convert the Git url (including for the submodule).

$ git config --global url."https://github".insteadOf git://github

Run the msysgit-install script from a command-line prompt (you may have to run it with Full Administrator rights if you installed msysgit with its installer, and ensure you're running from a Windows command prompt, not MINGW):

C:\gitflow> contrib\msysgit-install.cmd "[path to git installed folder]"

Here, [path to git installed folder] is the path where git has been installed e.g. C:\Program Files (x86)\Git

In Git bash create a symbolic link for git-flow so that you can actually use the $ git flow command from any location.

$ ln -s "/C/Program Files (x86)/Git/bin/git-flow" git-flow

If the path contains the spaces then enclose them into double quotes. /C/Program Files (x86)/Git/bin/git-flow is the path where git has been installed. e.g. C:\Program Files (x86)\Git\bin becomes /C/Program Files (x86)/Git/bin/git-flow

Test it

    $ git flow help
      usage: git flow <subcommand>

      Available subcommands are:
          init      Initialize a new git repo with support for the branching model.
          feature   Manage your feature branches.
          release   Manage your release branches.
          hotfix    Manage your hotfix branches.
          support   Manage your support branches.
          version   Shows version information.

      Try 'git flow <subcommand> help' for details. 

GitHub for Windows

GitHub for Windows uses a portable installation of MSysGit for its shell. You'll need to follow the above instructions for MSysGit, except for two differences, both of which rely on the install location for GHfW's MSysGit install location. To find that location:

Navigate to the GitHub directory under the OS's "Local Application Data" directory. On Windows 7, it is located at: "%LOCALAPPDATA%\GitHub\Portab~1".

Once you have the location, use it to perform the following (refer to the above MSysGit instructions above for more details):

Copy getopt.exe, libintl3.dll and libiconv2.dll to the bin directory directly under the location found above. In Windows 7, you would copy the files to: "%LOCALAPPDATA%\GitHub\Portab~1\bin".

Open the GitHub for Windows Git Shell and check that you are in the GitHub root directory e.g. C:\GitHub> Clone the GitFlow folder with

C:\GitHub> git clone --recursive git://github.com/nvie/gitflow.git

This will clone the GitFlow code into a new gitflow folder in your GitHub directory. You can select a different location if you prefer or you can remove the GitFlow clone later.

Change to the GitFlow directory:

C:\GitHub> cd gitflow

Run the msysgit-install script with the location as a parameter. For example:

C:\GitHub\gitflow [develop]> contrib\msysgit-install.cmd "%LOCALAPPDATA%\GitHub\Portab~1"

Check that GitFlow is installed by calling the help:

C:\GitHub> git flow help 

GitHub for Windows auto-updates itself, and when it does, you may lose GitFlow. This PowerShell script can be used to re-install things quickly. Keep this script and a local copy of the getopt.exe and two DLL files somewhere handy, and the gitflow repository in a sub-directory. Then just execute the script whenever needed.

$github = $env:LOCALAPPDATA + '\GitHub\Portab~1'
$githubBin = $github + '\bin'
Copy-Item getopt.exe $githubBin
Copy-Item *.dll $githubBin
Invoke-Expression ".\gitflow\contrib\msysgit-install.cmd '$github'"