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Application Dependencies
GitExtensions has a number of external dependencies, such as git and diff tools as well as PuTTY. Before v2.51.02 these tools were bundled into the installer and installed whenever GitExtensions was installed.
Whilst this approach had certain benefits - the installer was self contained, it brought a number of issues. For example, the GE release cadence is slower than of Git, so our users quite often may be stuck on old version of Git and wouldn't know how to update it. A lot of users never used Kdiff3, which we bundled, and preferred to use a different diff tool.
Below is the list of our dependencies - those you must have in order to GitExtensions, and thing you may choose to install.
GitExtensions is a GUI for Git, Git is an external installation. In Windows, the standard Git distribution from Git-for-Windows is used, other distributions (like Cygwin Git) could work but are not officially supported.
When releasing a GE version, a recent Git version is set as recommended (checked in settings), meaning it is the Git version GE maintainers expect to work the best. New Git versions are not tested explicitly with released GE versions so there could theoretically be compatibility issues, for instance changed paths in Git and changed formatting. The latest released Git version is normally recommended primarily due to security.
You can install git from the official site: https://git-scm.com/downloads, or using Chocolatey package manager:
choco upgrade -y git
For more information please refer to https://chocolatey.org/packages/git.
GitExtensions also has a minimum Git version, older than below are known to be not working and special handling is not considered. Git versions from the minimal to before the recommended may work, but are not tested.
| GitExtensions Version | Git version |
|---|---|
| 4.x | 2.25 |
| 3.x | 2.23 |
| [2.51.02, 3.00) | 2.9.0 |
| <= 2.51.01 | 1.7.0 |
To provide diff'ing experience and help in resolution of merge conflict GitExtensions relies on external diff tools, which must be installed on the user's machine. Before v2.51.02 we have bundled KDiff3, however many users chose to use a different diff tool.
GitExtensions supports many diff tools. Below is a list of tools we suggest, but you can install any diff tool you fancy.
For many release before v2.51.02 we have bundled KDiff3. If you wish to continue to use this tool we suggest you use Chocolatey package manager to install it:
choco upgrade -y kdiff3
For more information please refer to https://chocolatey.org/packages/kdiff3.
KDiff3 has not seen many changes for some years, but new builds are also available at https://download.kde.org/stable/kdiff3/.
P4Merge is quite popular among users. We suggest you use Chocolatey package manager to install it:
choco upgrade -y p4merge
For more information please refer to https://chocolatey.org/packages/p4merge.