read the thread LOTR links to...in the first post Aaron gives a link for the expired BS beta and the BearStart utility...

uninstall your present version of BS, and go so far as to totally delete Program Files/BearShare...then install the beta version...run the beta version by double clicking the BearStart.exe file...actually what I did is to right click on the BearStart.exe and chose 'pin to start menu', and start it from there..