As my developing tasks on XNA with C# took me on the next level I came in contact with Windows Live!. As a developer you need a XNA Creators Club Membership to test your games or use local profiles. Because of having a XBox360 I wanted to membership to test the game on the console as well, but 99$ are way to much for a student.

So I searched the web and finally came to the website http://www.dreamspark.com. As a student you can log in with your Windows Live! account and get verified. You are then allowed to receive a trial code that will give you a trial membership for the XNA Creators Club… very cool! 8-)

So here are the steps to request your own trial membership:

1. Create a Windows Live! account, if you don’t have one.
2. Go to the website http://www.dreamspark.com
3. Click on the XNA Game Studio Link
4. Sign in with your Windows Live! account
5. Get verified: Select your university and click on continue. This step depends on the university you are matriculated to, so I cannot go in detail here. Please follow the screen information.
6. Very IMPORTANT: Click on the button “GET KEY” on the download page and copy your trial code
7. Now you can switch to http://creators.xna.com
8. Login with your Windows Live! account
9. Step forward to http://creators.xna.com/en-US/membership
10. Search for the link “Signup for your premium membership” and click it (see step 4 on the website)
11. Select the option “Code einlösen” or “Submit code” in English and continue.
12. Enter your trial code from step 6 and go on.
13. You have a one year free XNA Creators Club Trial Membership right now. See your profile at http://creators.xna.com for your membership state and have fun. :-)

Additional I made some screenshot which you can view in the gallery below.

Hope this helps! Enjoy your trial membership. :-)