Windows-specific Git configuration settings; where are they set?

Question

I've read the Git documentation and Where do the settings in my Git configuration come from? and yet I still can't make sense of some of my settings.

I'm on Git 2.5.3 on Windows 10. Here's the output of git config -l:

λ git config -l
core.symlinks=false
core.autocrlf=true
color.diff=auto
color.status=auto
color.branch=auto
color.interactive=true
pack.packsizelimit=2g
help.format=html
http.sslcainfo=C:/Program Files/Git/mingw64/ssl/certs/ca-bundle.crt
sendemail.smtpserver=/bin/msmtp.exe
diff.astextplain.textconv=astextplain
rebase.autosquash=true
user.name=Ben Collins
user.email=#redacted#
alias.sm=submodule
alias.br=branch
alias.co=checkout
alias.st=status
alias.rebuild=!git rm --cached -r . && git reset --hard
core.excludesfile=C:\Users\Benjamin\Documents\gitignore_global.txt
core.editor=c:/Users/Benjamin/AppData/Local/atom/bin/atom.cmd
core.attributesfile=C:\Users\Benjamin\.gitattributes
push.default=simple
merge.tool=p4merge
mergetool.p4merge.cmd=p4merge.exe "$BASE" "$LOCAL" "$REMOTE" "$MERGED"
mergetool.p4merge.path=C:/Program Files/Perforce/p4merge.exe
gui.encoding=utf-8
diff.guitool=p4merge
difftool.p4merge.path=C:/Program Files/Perforce/p4merge.exe
difftool.p4merge.cmd=p4merge.exe "$LOCAL" "$REMOTE"
mergetool.keepbackup=false
rerere.enabled=true
credential.helper=!'C:\Users\Benjamin\AppData\Roaming\GitCredStore\git-credential-winstore.exe'
filter.lfs.clean=git lfs clean %f
filter.lfs.smudge=git lfs smudge %f
filter.lfs.required=true
color.diff.whitespace=red reverse

What's bothersome is that the first twelve settings I cannot find anywhere.

C:\Program Files\Git
λ git config --system --list
fatal: unable to read config file 'C:\Program Files\Git\mingw64/etc/gitconfig': No such file or directory
C:\Program Files\Git
λ git config --global --list
user.name=Ben Collins
user.email=#redacted#
alias.sm=submodule
alias.br=branch
alias.co=checkout
alias.st=status
alias.rebuild=!git rm --cached -r . && git reset --hard
core.excludesfile=C:\Users\Benjamin\Documents\gitignore_global.txt
core.editor=c:/Users/Benjamin/AppData/Local/atom/bin/atom.cmd
core.attributesfile=C:\Users\Benjamin\.gitattributes
push.default=simple
merge.tool=p4merge
mergetool.p4merge.cmd=p4merge.exe "$BASE" "$LOCAL" "$REMOTE" "$MERGED"
mergetool.p4merge.path=C:/Program Files/Perforce/p4merge.exe
gui.encoding=utf-8
diff.guitool=p4merge
difftool.p4merge.path=C:/Program Files/Perforce/p4merge.exe
difftool.p4merge.cmd=p4merge.exe "$LOCAL" "$REMOTE"
mergetool.keepbackup=false
rerere.enabled=true
credential.helper=!'C:\Users\Benjamin\AppData\Roaming\GitCredStore\git-credential-winstore.exe'
filter.lfs.clean=git lfs clean %f
filter.lfs.smudge=git lfs smudge %f
filter.lfs.required=true
color.diff.whitespace=red reverse

Also, when I try to unset one of the first twelve settings, it has no effect:

C:\Users\Benjamin\Projects\blah [master +0 ~1 -0]
λ git config --unset core.autocrlf
C:\Users\Benjamin\Projects\blah [master +0 ~1 -0]
λ git config core.autocrlf
true
C:\Users\Benjamin\Projects\Saddleback\cm-core [master +0 ~1 -0]
λ git config --unset-all core.autocrlf
C:\Users\Benjamin\Projects\Saddleback\cm-core [master +0 ~1 -0]
λ git config core.autocrlf
true

Are these first twelve settings hardcoded or platform-specific somehow? How do I get control of them?

Answer 1

As this commit explains, they've added another config location only for Windows, which is applied even before the --system:

The file /etc/gitconfig can be used to store a system-wide default configuration. On Windows, configuration can also be stored in C:\ProgramData\Git\config; This file will be used also by libgit2-based software.

...

On Windows, as there is no central /etc/ directory, there is yet another config file, intended to contain settings for all Git-related software running on the machine. Consequently, this config file takes an even lower precedence than the $(prefix)/etc/gitconfig file.

So I believe you can find those mystery settings in C:\ProgramData\Git\config.

---

From that commit I can see that git config --system --list should've shown you those settings, but it seems that the absence of C:\Program Files\Git\mingw64/etc/gitconfig file aborted the operation, which is probably a bug.