Installing
Crew Chief requires the .Net framework, version 4.7.2. This is included in Windows 10 & 11 but Windows 7 and Window 8 users will need to install it.Download the CrewChiefV4.msi installer via the forum. The installer is not signed (because that's expensive) so your browser and Windows will warn you about it - decide for yourself whether you accept the risk (you can check https://thecrewchief.org/downloads/CrewChiefV4.msi at https://www.virustotal.com - here is a cached test) and run it.
If it won't install, open a command window and go to your download folder then enter
msiexec /i CrewChiefV4.msi /l*v CrewChiefV4Log.txt
The file CrewChiefV4Log.txt may then have something which sheds light on your problem.
Quick start
Start Crew Chief. Click the Download sound pack button and the Download driver names button to get the latest sounds and driver names. Select a game from the list at the top right. When the sounds and driver names have finished downloading, click the Start Application button. Then fire up the game.Note that Crew Chief comes with swearing 'off' by default - if you want to be sworn at you need to enable this in the Properties UI.
Similarly, if the complaining and negative messages annoy you the Max complaints per session Property limits the number of times Crew Chief will complain or make a negative comment to you in a single session. If you're happy to have Crew Chief complain when you do badly (by his occasionally unattainable standards) then set this to a higher number. If you don't want him to complain at all set it to 0. The default value of 60 is intended to prevent his grumbling from getting tiresome in endurance or very long races
For Raceroom, iRacing and Project Cars, Crew Chief is self contained and needs no other software and almost no configuration. For rFactor 1 based games, rFactor 2 and Assetto Corsa there are a couple of extra steps required (see Getting Started/Game specific).
For voice recognition (entirely optional but quite handy and very cool) see the Help page Voice Recognition/Installation & Training.
Startup issues
If Crew Chief refuses to start, or starts then closes itself, try deleting Crew Chief's configuration files. To do this go to %LOCALAPPDATA%/Britton_IT_Ltd (C:\Users\[user name]\AppData\Local\Britton_IT_Ltd\) and delete all the subfolders in there. This will reset all Crew Chief's settings to default. Note that the 'AppData' folder is hidden by default on Windows - you may need to change the View settings in the File Explorer Options from Windows Control Panel - look for a setting called Show hidden files and folders.There may also be an error logged in the Windows Event logs - look for .Net errors in Crew Chief Logs section.