GameMaker has a separate "Beta" installer for people who want bug fixes or new features sooner and in exchange are willing to risk encountering bugs or issues associated with a version which has not completed testing.
The Beta version is a separate installation of the IDE on your PC/Mac and does not require you to modify your current GameMaker setup, so you can have the current Monthly installed alongside a Beta for the next one.
However, Betas get far less internal testing time and accordingly may contain bugs which could corrupt your projects and may also introduce legitimate project format changes which stop you opening the project again in other versions. Accordingly, we would therefore strongly suggest that you backup all projects before trying them on a beta.
If you use a Beta it's very important that you do report issues as soon as you see them, so that by the time the "Monthly" release is made these issues have hopefully all been fixed.
Downloading The Installer
You can find the installers for all 3 operating systems that GameMaker Betas support at https://gamemaker.io/en/download
We release a series of betas in the lead-up to each major release and your Beta install will notify each time a new update is available, so you typically only need to get the installer from here one time.
Click the dropdown arrow next to the Betas entry to find the links:
Steam users: Beta releases are not offered on Steam. However, your purchase is still valid for the non-Steam version as well. If you haven't done so already, follow Using Your YoYo Account With Steam and then you can carry on with installing the Beta.
Review Your SDKs For The New Install
As you have just changed to a different version of GameMaker, it's now essential that you review your external tools are suitable for use in that version otherwise you may have issues building your projects.
See our Required SDKs FAQ and the setup guides it links to for all target platforms relevant to you.
Please don't use newer versions than what we say on that FAQ, as it might cause your builds to fail.
Current Beta Release Thread
To see the initial known issues and for giving feedback or asking questions about the new Beta version, please see the following thread on the GameMaker Community:
https://forum.gamemaker.io/index.php?threads/2024-1100-betas-thread.115648/
Submitting Bug Reports
Assuming your issue is not already mentioned in the release thread above, the process for filing bug reports is no different to the regular release: please use the bug-reporter tool inside GameMaker, as shown below.
Make sure you check the forum thread above and the known issues link on the bug-reporter before doing anything else - you may not need to send us a report!