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Documentation Index

Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/ZeqMacaw/Crowbar/llms.txt

Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

Crowbar ships as a simple ZIP archive with no installer required. Download the archive, extract it anywhere you like, and run the executable — that’s it. First-time setup consists of telling Crowbar where your game files live, and you’re ready to start decompiling and compiling models.

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System Requirements

RequirementDetails
Operating SystemWindows (any version supporting .NET Framework 4)
.NET FrameworkVersion 4 or later
Architecturex86 (32-bit) — required
Crowbar is a 32-bit (x86) application. It must be run as an x86 executable, and if you build from source you must use the x86 build configuration (not “Any CPU”). Running or building under a 64-bit (“Any CPU”) configuration is not supported and will not work correctly.

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Installing Crowbar

1

Download the latest release

Go to the official Crowbar page at https://steamcommunity.com/groups/CrowbarTool and follow the link to the latest release download. The release is distributed as a .zip archive.
2

Extract the ZIP archive

Extract the contents of the ZIP to any folder on your system, for example C:\Tools\Crowbar\. No specific installation path is required. The archive contains Crowbar.exe along with its supporting files.
3

Run Crowbar.exe

Double-click Crowbar.exe to launch the application. Because Crowbar is an x86 application, Windows will run it under WOW64 on 64-bit systems without any additional steps.
4

Set up your game profiles

On first launch, Crowbar opens to the Set Up Games tab. Add a profile for each game you want to mod by specifying:
  • A display name for the game
  • The engine type (GoldSource or Source)
  • The path to the game’s gameinfo.txt
  • The path to studiomdl.exe (the model compiler)
  • The path to hlmv.exe (the model viewer)
These paths let Crowbar locate the right compiler and viewer for each game automatically. You can add as many game profiles as you need and switch between them in the Compile, View, and other tabs.
Always download Crowbar from the official page: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/CrowbarTool. This page links to the latest release and all related resources.

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Building From Source

If you want to build Crowbar yourself from the source code, you’ll need Visual Studio and the correct build configuration. Requirements:
  • Visual Studio Community 2017 or Visual Studio Community 2019
  • Visual Basic .NET support (included in the default VS workloads)
  • .NET Framework 4 SDK
Build steps:
1

Open the solution

Open Crowbar.sln in Visual Studio.
2

Set the build configuration to x86

In the toolbar at the top of Visual Studio, set the Solution Configuration to Debug (for development) or Release (for distribution), and set the Solution Platform to x86.In Visual Studio 2019 specifically, the default platform may be set to Any CPU — you must manually change this to x86 or the build will not produce a working executable.
3

Build the solution

Select Build → Build Solution (or press Ctrl+Shift+B). The compiled Crowbar.exe will appear in the bin\x86\Debug\ or bin\x86\Release\ folder depending on the chosen configuration.
Always confirm the platform is set to x86 — not “Any CPU” — before building. The project is written in Visual Basic .NET and targets .NET Framework 4. Building with “Any CPU” is a known source of problems.

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