TiCN thin films were deposited on tool steels at $510^{circ}C$ by PECVD from a $TiCl_4+N_2+CH_4+H_2+Ar$ gaseous mixture. The microstructures and preferred orientation were investigated. The micro-scratch tests were performed using a system equipped with an acoustic emission sensor. Critical loads were determined to evaluate the adhesion of TiCN to substrate. The influences of the microstructures of substrates, double layered coatings, and coatings after nitriding(duplex coating) were investigated. The experimental results showed that the microstructures of substrates and double layered coating did not affect the critical loads considerably. By the duplex coating, critical loads were not always increased. In some cases, duplex coatings decreased critical loads significantly despite of absence of black layer. In this study, we tried to relate the results of scratch test to the residual stress analysis. Nitriding before the coating reduces the tensile residual stress in the film, which gives rise to low critical load in scratch test.