Hi Johannes,

I tried it with the portable version and it works for me as well.
I went back and installed the regular version 2.51.0.windows.1 and "git gui &" also works as expected.

However, when calling my Makefile, the version 2.51.0 does behave differently than 2.45.2 for some reason. I created a minimal Makefile for you to try to reproduce it.

Create a Makefile file with this content (please make sure the last line starts with a TAB and not 4 spaces):

CMD=cmd //c
git_gui=${CMD} "git --version && git gui"

open_git_gui:
        $(git_gui) >/dev/null 2>&1 &

I am using this Make version:
$ make --version
GNU Make 3.81

When you call "make open_git_gui" you will hopefully reproduce my issue where the console is not available until you close the GIT GUI.
If you run it with git version 2.45.2 the bash becomes available immediately.

PS. My Makefile handles things a bit differently depending if the user is on Windows or Linux, so on Windows it actually calls the Command Line to execute the commands. Nevertheless, I would expect things to behave the same on git-bash no matter the git version.

Thank you.
Cheers,
Tiago




-----Original Message-----
From: Johannes Schindelin <redacted>
Sent: Friday, 26 September 2025 12:00
To: Tiago Gomes <redacted>
Cc: git@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [BUG] Git Bash no longer detaches GUI processes with & in version 2.51.0

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Hi Tiago,

On Fri, 26 Sep 2025, Tiago Gomes wrote:

What did you do before the bug happened? (Steps to reproduce your
issue) I installed the version Git-2.51.0-64-bit.exe.

What did you expect to happen? (Expected behavior) I expected the same
behavior as with Git-2.45.2-64-bit.exe. In that version, I could use Git Bash to run Makefile targets that launch GUI applications (like Vivado) using the command chaining or backgrounding operator (&). This allowed the GUI tool to open while the Git Bash console remained responsive. I could continue typing commands even with the GUI still running.

What happened instead? (Actual behavior) With version 2.51.0, this
behavior no longer works. When a GUI tool is launched using &, the Git Bash console becomes blocked and does not accept further input until the GUI application is closed.

I just tried this:

  me@work MINGW64 ~
  $ git version
  git version 2.51.0.windows.1.77.gade1f1c136.20250926063933

  me@work MINGW64 ~
  $ git gui &
  [1] 280

  me@work MINGW64 ~
  $ pwd
  /c/Users/me

I doubt that the behavior difference is due to the different version (I am using the v2.51.0(2) preview from https://github.com/git-for-windows/git-for-windows-automation/actions/runs/18030062242).

Could you try that preview? You can use the Portable version so that you do not have to "clobber" your existing installation.

Ciao,
Johannes
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