When upgrading to Vista, what happens to partition?

So if I sign up to get the Vista upgrade, does that take of the partition? Does it install inself within the lenovo "hidden" partition? Do I choose? Ideally, I'd like it to install in the partition since it eats up so much hard drive space anyways.

 

it will stay there.

 

The partition will stay, and then vista will install in the main partition? Is there anyway to force it onto the hidden partition? I'd like to preserve what HD space I have.

 

Hidden partition isn't big enough.

 

So I guess the only think to do is to wipe the old partition right? When installing Vista, does it look for XP first, then install inself over it? What happens down the road if I want to reformat? How does installing vista work? Will popping in the Vista disc take care of it all?

 

no, the vista (upgrade) needs to be installed OVER XP.

 

there are workaround for having to have XP installed first. There is no reason you cannot remove the hidden partition if you like, but you may need more than just window's install stuff. any decent partition editor should help.

What I'm more interested in is how many of the preinstalled apps can you take with you if you don't upgrade. That is does IBM let you make install disks for the preinstall stuff or just a recovery disk. Because I'm pretty sure I will be able to do a clean install of Vista...

 

just recovery disks.

just for safe keeping i'd not wipe out that hidden partition. it's always a nice thing to have a backup in case troubles arise

 

From what I've read, the Vista upgrade will invalidate your XP license. That somewhat makes it pointless to be able to revert. Am I mistaken?

 

Well, from everything I've seen, there is no way the license could be invalidated, at least not in OEM pre-installed software. The way the OEM Lenovo install works is with a generic Microsoft key that just signals Windows to use the OEMBIOS files to compare strings in the BIOS on the laptop. As long as the generic key is correct and the strings match, there isn't any need to even activate the laptop.

Just to clarify, the key on the bottom of the laptop isn't the same key used to install and activate it. The same generic key is used on every install, at least for the same model and the sticker is just provided to prove that you have a proper license.

Quick Edit: What I said above is from a technical standpoint, the EULA may differ in respect to the licensing and my prohibit reverting to XP once a Vista upgrade has been performed. Personally I think that's crap and if I want to remove Vista and go back to XP, I see nothing morally wrong with that!