If you encounter an error “protocol error: bad line length character: Acti” (the last 4 characters might be different) when executing a remote Git command in SmartGit on Windows, please launch cmd.exe and look for some default output (in our case, e.g. Active code page: 65001). This might be caused by a so-called autorun script which can be configured at the registry key AUTORUN at HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Command Processor.

Solution: Ensure that the script does not output anything.