diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..0c78d03cc1a88d187c74d8a3b49f60c609cc89ed
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,56 @@
+Redis on Windows 2.6 prototype
+===
+## What's new in this release
+
+- This is a port for Windows based on Redis 2.6.8.
+- The port is similar to the port of Redis 2.4, including the same background saving technology.
+- There is support for x64 version as well as 32 bit versions.
+- For the 64 bit version, there is a limit of 2^32 objects in a structure, and a max length of 2^32 for any object
+- Version number now 2.6.8-pre1 to indicate prerelease and to enable changing
+
+===
+Special thanks to Dušan Majkic (https://github.com/dmajkic, https://github.com/dmajkic/redis/) for his project on GitHub that gave us the opportunity to quickly learn some on the intricacies of Redis code. His project also helped us to build our prototype quickly.
+
+## Repo branches
+- 2.6_alpha: This is the only 2.6 branch so far. Only basic testing has been done.
+
+## How to build Redis using Visual Studio
+
+You can use the free Express Edition available at http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/products/2010-editions/visual-cpp-express.
+
+- Open the solution file msvs\redisserver.sln in Visual Studio 10, select platform (win32 or x64) and build.
+
+    This should create the following executables in the msvs\$(Configuration) folder:
+
+    - redis-server.exe
+    - redis-benchmark.exe
+    - redis-cli.exe
+    - redis-check-dump.exe
+    - redis-check-aof.exe
+
+For your convenience all binaries are be available in the msvs/bin/release|debug directories.
+
+## RedisWatcher
+So far the RedisWatcher is not carried over to 2.6. However this should not be affected by the Redis version, and the code in the 2.4 branch should work with the Redis 2.6 binaries.
+
+## RedisWAInst
+So far the RedisWAInst is not carried over to 2.6. However this should not be affected by the Redis version, and the code in the 2.4 branch should work with the Redis 2.6 binaries.
+
+## Release Notes
+
+This is a pre-release version of the software.
+
+To run the Redis test suite requires some manual work:
+
+- The tests assume that the binaries are in the src folder, so you need to copy the binaries from the msvs folder to src. 
+- The tests make use of TCL. This must be installed separately.
+- To run the tests you need to have a Unix shell on your machine. To execute the tests, run the following command: `tclsh8.5.exe tests/test_helper.tcl`. 
+  
+If a Unix shell is not installed you may see the following error message: "couldn't execute "cat": no such file or directory".
+
+## Known issues
+When the unit tests are run, a few failures are reported, mostly related to replication. The exact failures vary per run. The tests pass if they are run individually. We are still investigating if this is a timing problem with the tests or with the port of the Redis server.
+
+The are 3 consistent failures in the protocol module, having to do with receiving an error message when the client connection is closed due to bad data. These tests are disabled for now.
+
+ 
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/msvs/bin/debug/redisbin.zip b/msvs/bin/debug/redisbin.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..23ec7e13ab3f10fa437ce289b2fe452076c2842f
Binary files /dev/null and b/msvs/bin/debug/redisbin.zip differ
diff --git a/msvs/bin/debug/redisbin64.zip b/msvs/bin/debug/redisbin64.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..fa1f906c6ee5744564b2eaa26b8b7f42c146fdef
Binary files /dev/null and b/msvs/bin/debug/redisbin64.zip differ
diff --git a/msvs/bin/release/redisbin.zip b/msvs/bin/release/redisbin.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..554765fa8553cbba7ee7e78c1407488d732bacf9
Binary files /dev/null and b/msvs/bin/release/redisbin.zip differ
diff --git a/msvs/bin/release/redisbin64.zip b/msvs/bin/release/redisbin64.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..7be9ee9275933f37847e0e352f223a9cd987cd00
Binary files /dev/null and b/msvs/bin/release/redisbin64.zip differ