As others have pointed out, the reason why this works is that Git for Windows is bundled with msys. You could achieve the same ends by installing msys standalo

As others have pointed out, the reason why this works is that Git for Windows is bundled with msys. You could achieve the same ends by installing msys standalone, but I guess many already have Git for Windows so this is a simpler path. The key benefits msys has over cygwin, from my experience, are how lightweight it is, and how easy and fast it is to set up. I wrangled with cygwin for far too long (for no good purpose) before switching to msys and then GNU/Linux.