How do you become a Beta tester?  You need to log into the customer portal and under user preferences, select to become a Beta tester.  Now you can download and test 2012 and participate in the beta events .  There are many great prizes that you could win if you find bugs in the Beta version of 2012.

Download it today and happy Beta-ing.

For all of you Windows 7 users out there, I think I have a nice solution for you. As long as you have Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise or Ultimate you are entitled to run Windows XP mode for free. Windows XP mode is really a specialized version of Windows Virtual PC that is really easy to set up. Once you have it, you have a little virtual XP machine running in a window. This little machine has no idea it isn’t a real machine -it works just like a stand alone computer thus changes you make have no affect on your production machine. It is a great little sandbox for experimenting.

I just created a virtual machine, installed SolidWorks 2011 and SolidWorks Enterprise PDM on it and all is good. The only tweak I made was to increase the amount if virtual memory up to a GB, it was too slow at the default size of 500MB.

When I am done, I can simply delete the virtual machine and make another.

Tuesday Joy Garon wrote in her blog:

In an effort to alleviate part of the resource issue, the SolidWorks Beta team has created a “Hosted EPDM Beta Environment” that our EPDM customers can use to beta test with minimal effort.

SolidWorks supplies the database and archive servers and all the customer has to do is install the corresponding beta client. The customer has the ability to try out new functionality by creating their own vault or using a pre-populated test vault.

There will certainly be other things to test, but this is going to be a great tool to quickly and economically get your hands on the newest release. The sooner you get it tested, the sooner your users can start using the new time saving tools in Enterprise you have been paying for.

Jump over to her post to learn more and to sign up.

You and M.C. Hammer may ask why you care about beta time? A wise man once mentioned these words.