Why is “MINGW64” appearing on my Git bash?

Question

I had to format my laptop, and so I had to install Git again. However it is quite different from the one I had yesterday, the icon is not the default orange one anymore, it

Answer 1

I just noticed this on my machine as well. The orange icon you're referring to is probably the Ubuntu icon you would normally get while running the "Bash on Ubuntu on Windows" app. However, when you installed GIT, it also uses a version of bash. The app is called "Git Bash" in the start menu.

When I simply typed "Bash" in the search box and then and pressed enter, Windows opened the "best match", which happens (in my case) to be GIT installation with MINGW64. If you type "Ubuntu" instead, or if you look at the start menu's choices, you should see the other bash.

This is important to know that the two environments are separate, since programs from one environment may not be installed in the other.