The Steps of Build Git with VS2008 1. You need the build environment, which contains the Git dependencies to be able to compile, link and run Git with MSVC. You can either use the binary repository: WWW: http://repo.or.cz/w/msvcgit.git Git: git clone git://repo.or.cz/msvcgit.git Zip: http://repo.or.cz/w/msvcgit.git?a=snapshot;h=master;sf=zip and call the setup_32bit_env.cmd batch script before compiling Git, (see repo/package README for details), or the source repository: WWW: http://repo.or.cz/w/gitbuild.git Git: git clone git://repo.or.cz/gitbuild.git Zip: (None, as it's a project with submodules) and build the support libs as instructed in that repo/package. 2. Ensure you have the msysgit environment in your path, so you have GNU Make, bash and perl available. WWW: http://repo.or.cz/w/msysgit.git Git: git clone git://repo.or.cz/msysgit.git Zip: http://repo.or.cz/w/msysgit.git?a=snapshot;h=master;sf=zip This environment is also needed when you use the resulting executables, since Git might need to run scripts which are part of the git operations. 3. Inside Git's directory run the command: make common-cmds.h to generate the common-cmds.h file needed to compile git. 4. Then either build Git with the GNU Make Makefile in the Git projects root make MSVC=1 or generate Visual Studio solution/projects (.sln/.vcproj) with the command perl contrib/buildsystems/generate -g Vcproj and open and build the solution with the IDE devenv git.sln /useenv or build with the IDE build engine directly from the command line devenv git.sln /useenv /build "Release|Win32" The /useenv option is required, so Visual Studio picks up the environment variables for the support libraries required to build Git, which you set up in step 1. Done!