Dell :: [Official] XPS M1330 Windows 7 X64 Thread [Official]

I created this thread with the intention of grouping all who have, or in the process, or are planning to upgrade to Windows 7 x64 for the XPS M1330.

Personally I'm currently on Vista Ultimate x86 (because it's a Product Red) and I'm entitled to a free Windows 7 Professional x64 license from my school. I've read that it's not possible to upgrade directly from higher-to-lower (in terms of level of OS).

Like for mine I'd only be able to upgrade directly if I had a Windows 7 Ultimate license.

Hence for my case, I would like to seek the advice from the helpful fellas here on my upgrade (sequence) options.

Currently I have 2 partitions, as per default. C drive as OS and main partition of 285GB and D drive as RECOVERY of 9.99GB.

Questions:
1) If I were to install Windows 7 on a newly created partition, ie. F drive (as my DVDRW is on E drive now), would I be able to format my C drive (after backing up data from it) and turn it into a storage drive?

2) If 1) is possible, should I partition F drive to 20-25GB as the norm capacity for Windows 7 OS installation, or should I allocate more space? (I'm asking this because I've never done an OS-only partition + Data-only partition in any computer I own because I don't see the usefulness of it LAST TIME.

3) If I had an OS partition in F drive, 20-25GB, and the Data partition on C drive (after formatting Vista), would I be able to swap these 2 drive letters so C drive becomes my Windows 7 OS Drive and F drive becomes my Data drive?

4) If that's the case, would I still be needing D drive (RECOVERY), or can I format->delete it?

5) Having 20-25GB in C drive, assuming I've swapped F drive with C drive, where would I be installing my applications? Do I need to install applications into the OS drive or can I install it in the Data drive? Because if it were the case that applications NEED to be installed into the OS drive, I'd need to allocate a little more space in now-C drive, right?