VisualStudio 2015 git extension or git for windows?

Question

Do I lose something if I prefer the official git for windows installation instead of the Visual Studio 2015 extension?

The Visual Studio extension seems to use a different/older git version.

I wonder if I lose some kind of integration with Visual Studio by installing git for windows.

Do I really need the Visual Studio 3rd party git command prompt tools or can I use git for windows?

Answer 1

You can use Git for Windows.

In fact, that prompt is prompting you to install Git for Windows, however older versions of Visual Studio are only able to detect an installation of Git for Windows 1.9, not a newer version (like Git for Windows 2.x), as Git for Windows writes to different locations.

Newer versions of Visual Studio (beginning with Visual Studio 2015 Update 1) will both install Git for Windows 2.x and will be able to detect your own installation of Git for Windows 2.x. This means that if you install Git for Windows yourself it will not bother you to install it yourself.

The Git team at Microsoft is very active, so it's always a good idea to update to the latest update.