Is msysgit a virus ?

If you are thinking about downloading and installing the latest version of msysgit at the moment (1.7.0.2-preview) then take my advice: do-not-install-git-cheetah (aka windows shell extension integration). I tried it last night, and feel very upset with this one.

When you start the installer of msysgit, it will ask you to choose a few settings, such as safe CRLF, or commit name & email. It's good, many of my friends have problem because msysgit enable safe CRLF by default. But the new thing in this version (or maybe in previous version) is Git Cheetah, and it's checked by default when you choose install options. Not talking about the uselessness and the ugliness of Git Cheetah (I'm using TortoiseGit, thanks!), once you install it, you will have to stick with this forever. You can not disable Git Cheetah, this option is not available in current version, and you can not remove Git Cheetah ether, even when you uninstall msysgit and install it again: Git cheetah is still there. If you uninstall msysgit and restart the computer, then you make a bad choice. Msysgit will begin to behave like a virus, keep popping up windows and stopping you from browsing (I'm not sure if Git Cheetah is guilty to my browser crashes, FF crashes many times when the virus is still in my computer).

The only way to `fix` Git Cheetah is to go to Registry editor, and search for the git cheetah (or you can use the dll name), then delete the registry folder which contains the result entry. After that, restart explorer to refresh Windows shell extension. If you are interested in fixing msysgit then the issue is already reported here, if not, you can just forget Git Cheetah and git happily with TortoiseGit. Let hope this bug is fixed soon.

[inline:git-virus.png]
Bonus: Say hi to git cheetah