I ran across a nasty problem installing Symfony2 on Windows XP SP2. Symfony2 uses git and Composer to create new projects and manage dependencies. This is awesome – when it works. Unfortunately, I setup msysgit incorrectly by selecting the wrong install option.

See that big nasty warning message in the third option? That scared me enough that I went with option 2. That was a mistake, because when I tried to run Composer’s install command, I ran into this error:

php composer.phar create-project symfony/framework-standard-edition path/ 2.1.2 Failed to clone http://github.com/fabpot/Twig.git, git was not found, check that it is installed and in your PATH env. 

Which is weird because when I run git from the command line, I get a list of options.

The problem is in the Windows PATH variable. Option 2 installs “C:\Program Files\Git\cmd” into the PATH, not “C:\Program Files\Git\bin” like option 3.

Solution: Aside from re-installing msysgit and selecting option 3, just add “C:\Program Files\Git\bin” to the end of your path, close and re-open the command window, and try again.

References:

• Failed to clone http://github.com/fabpot/Twig.git, git was not found, check that it is installed and in your PATH env
• [windows][documentation] Failed to clone http://github.com/foo/bar.git, git was not found, check that it is installed and in your PATH env