Replace visual studio 2012 Diff tool with winmerge when using Microsoft Git Provider

Question

I have a Visual Studio 2012 v3 and git extensions installed.

I want to change the default merge tool to winmerge but it seems that this is not a trivial task when Microsoft Git Provider is chosen.

When i go to VS -> Tools -> Options -> Source Control I have only Plug-in-Selection tab and cannot choose configure tools to change to WinMerge.

Is there any way of using Git Extensions with WinMerge inside VS2012?

Answer 1

Backed up by that DZone-article, the trick is to configure the diff-tool in git.config:

1. Open the git bash in your repository

2. Create a config section for WinMerge as a diff-tool:

   $ git config --local difftool.winmerge.cmd '"C:\Program Files (x86)\WinMerge\WinMergeU.exe" "$LOCAL" "$REMOTE"'
   

3. Configure git to switch to WinMerge as the diff-tool:

   $ git config --local diff.tool winmerge
   

If you want to have this setting as a global setting, replace the --local switch with --global.