A Git client for Windows. Porting TortoiseSVN to TortoiseGIT, TortoiseSVN Git Version. It is porting TortoiseSVN to TortoiseGit. Version control is the art of managing changes to information. It has long been a critical tool for programmers, who typically spend their time making small changes to program and then undoing or checking some of those changes the next day. Imagine a team of such developers working concurrently - and perhaps even simultaneously on the very same files! - and you can see why a good system is needed to manage the potential chaos.

TortoiseGit is a free open-source client for the Git version control system. That is, TortoiseGit manages files over time. Files are stored in a local repository. The repository is much like an ordinary file server, except that it remembers every change ever made to your files and directories. This allows you to recover older versions of your files and examine the history of how and when your data changed, and who changed it. This is why many people think of Git and version control systems in general as a sort of "time machine".

Some version control systems are also program configuration management (SCM) systems. These systems are specifically tailored to manage trees of source code, and have many features that are specific to program development - such as natively understanding programming languages, or supplying tools for building software. Git, however, is not one of these systems; it is a general system that can be used to manage any collection of files, including source code.

Git is an open source, distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency. Every Git clone is a full-fledged repository with complete history and full revision tracking abilities, not dependent on network access or a central server. Branching and merging are fast and easy to do.

TortoiseGit's Features
1. Shell integration
TortoiseGit integrates seamlessly into the Windows shell (i.e. the explorer). This means you can keep working with the tools you're already familiar with. And you do not have to change into a different software each time you need functions of the version control!
And you are not even forced to use the Windows Explorer. TortoiseGit's context menus work in many other file managers, and in the File/Open dialog which is common to most standard Windows applications. You should, however, bear in mind that TortoiseGit is intentionally developed as extension for the Windows Explorer. Thus it is possible that in other applications the integration is not as complete and e.g. the icon overlays may not be shown.

2. Icon overlays
The status of every versioned file and folder is indicated by small overlay icons. That way you can see right away what the status of your working copy is.

3. Easy access to Git commands
All Git commands are available from the explorer context menu. TortoiseGit adds its own submenu there.

4. Since TortoiseGit is a Git client, we would also like to show you some of the features of Git itself:
5. Distributed version control
Like most other modern version control systems, Git gives each developer a local copy of the entire development history, and changes are copied from one such repository to another. These changes are imported as additional development branches, and can be merged in the same way as a locally developed branch. Repositories can be easily accessed via the efficient Git protocol (optionally wrapped in ssh for authentication and security) or simply using HTTP - you can publish your repository anywhere without any special webserver configuration required.

6. Atomic commits
A commit either goes into the repository totally, or not at all.

7. Strong support for non-linear development
Git supports rapid and handy branching and merging, and includes strong tools for visualizing and navigating a non-linear development history.

8. Efficient handling of large projects
Git is very fast and scales well even when working with large projects and long histories. It is commonly an order of magnitude faster than most other version control systems, and several orders of magnitude faster on some operations. It also uses an extremely efficient packed format for long-term revision storage that currently tops any other open source version control system.

9. Cryptographic authentication of history
The Git history is stored in such a way that the name of a particular revision (a "commit" in Git terms) depends upon the complete development history leading up to that commit. Once it is published, it is not possible to change the old versions without it being noticed. Also, tags can be cryptographically signed.

10. Efficient branching and tagging
The cost of branching and tagging need not be proportional to the project size. Branch is just head of commits. Tag is friend name of commit hash.

11. Toolkit design.
Following the Unix tradition, Git is a collection of many small tools written in C, and a number of scripts that provide handy wrappers. Git provides tools for both easy human usage and easy scripting to perform new clever operations.

Installing TortoiseGit:
1.Install Putty, this program will manage your SSH key (also contains a nice SSH client if you ever need it)
2.Run the msysgit installer, you'll need this in order to use TortoiseGit
*. Select the option Add "Git Bash here"
*. Select the option Run Git from the Windows Command Prompt
*. Select the option Use Windows style line endings
*. If it asks for PLink, locate plink.exe in your PuTTY install directory (e.g. C:\Program Files\PuTTY\plink.exe)
3.Install TortoiseGit
*. If it asks for the path to msysgit, locate the bin directory in your msysgit install directory (e.g. C:\Program Files\Git\bin)
*. Once installed, go to TortoiseGit Settings Git Config and verify that the AutoCRLF and SafeCRLF options are enabled

Note: TortoiseGit (like TortoiseSVN and CVS) is accessed through the explorer context menu, which can be opened by right clicking inside any folder in Windows Explorer.

The license of this software is Free, you can free download and free use this system utility software.