Changing .gitconfig location on Windows

Question

By default on Windows Git places global .gitconfig in c:\\documents and settings\\user\\

How can I change that position so .gitconfig is stored in

Answer 1

Solution without having to change Windows HOME variable
OS: Windows 10
git version: 2.27.0.windows.1

I use portable version of Git, so all my config files are on my pen-drive(E:). This is what worked for me:

1. Download portable Git from https://git-scm.com/. Run the file and install it in the required location. I installed it in E:\git.
2. Run git-bash.exe from E:\git.
3. I wanted to put .gitconfig and other bash files in E, so I created a folder called home where I want them all in.
   mkdir home
4. Go to etc folder and open the file called profile (In my case, it's E:\git\etc\profile)
5. Add absolute path to the home directory we created (or to the directory where you want to have your .gitconfig file located) at the end of the profile file.
   HOME="E:\git\home"

Now it no longer searches in the C:\Users directory for .gitconfig but only looks in your set path above.

$ git config --global --list
fatal: unable to read config file 'E:/git/home/.gitconfig': No such file or directory

It gave an error because there isn't a .gitconfig file there yet. This is just to demonstrate that we have successfully changed the location of the .gitconfig file without changing the HOME directory in Windows.