you can use Poser 11 and save the scene to Poser 12 and render it, snow machine only add  extra layers  to the scenes, that you can easily save to Poser 12. that is why i always have both Posers 11 and Poser Pro 12 on the same time to save me even more time xD

yeah, you can have both Posers  softwares on the same time  it believe it is  completely different  softwares , you move around on both , but can't  render on both at same time , they will bug out with black screen