How do I install Git for Windows software to a specific directory?

Question

I have just downloaded the latest Git for Windows installer, v2.4. It appears to want to install to the standard Windows "Program files" (with-spaces-in-name) directory.

Since I have all my development code in a folder called (simply) "/bin" -- I want to see if there's a command line option or parameter to change the install directory.

In my case, these days I use a environment variable such as GIT_HOME for important software like git; so it would be useful if there was a way to apply that to things like git commands, etc once I have the program installed.

possibly related:

• How do I change the directory in Git Bash with Git for Windows?

I also came across a few questions asking: "whereis git". That's answered above, however I take that as an indicator that others may want git somewhere else too.

Answer 1

To start the installer with a different installation path you can open a CMD terminal in the same directory as the installer executable and pass in an option parameter of /DIR="x:\dirname"

For instance, if you have version 2.17.0 for Windows 64bit and you want to install git to D:\git, you would run:

Git-2.17.0-64-bit.exe /DIR="D:\git"

The installer will launch as usual and you need to walk through the other options, but the install location will be the path specified.