How to use Git on Windows with PuTTY

1. Get "PuTTY Link" and "Pageant" (an SSH key agent) from the PuTTY download page.

2. Run pageant.exe, find its icon inside your system tray and add your SSH key.

3. Open up a cmd and put the full path to PuTTY's plink.exe into the GIT_SSH environment variable, e.g.:

   Copy
   set GIT_SSH=D:\PuTTY\plink.exe
   

You can then use Git like you would on any sane operating system. Just go ahead and git clone, git pull, etc.

Also, you may want to add the environment variable under the Windows system properties so it survives a reboot.