Upgrading 5044WLMi to Vista

Hi my specs are as follows:

AMD Turion64 ML-34 1.8Ghz Processor
ATI Mobility Xpress 200M Integrated Graphics
512mb DDR Ram (I will upgrade this first)
80Gb HDD (I use this for Uni work and pictures only)

Is it worth upgrading to Vista and how well would it run? I would still be able to get the laptop back to how it was when I bought it by making a backup of the PQservice partition right?

Also would I be able to keep the PQservice partition intact and just install Vista to the C: Drive.

Would the following steps work.

1. Backup anything I need to keep to the D: Partition
2. Format the C: partition as NTFS
3. Install Windows Vista onto the C: partition
4. Use Partition Magic 8 to convert the D: partition to NTFS
5. Done

A few things to consider before answering
1. I will upgrade the RAM before I do this. Will 1GB be enough remember some will be used for integrated graphics

2. I always assumed that Integrated graphics would not run the Aero user interface but a friend bought an Acer 5612zWLMi yesterday and it came with vista installed and aero interface activated and working. It has Intel GMA 950 Shared Graphics, and in the past i've always seen Intel integrated graphics as one of the worst i've seen?

3. Don't worry about HDD space, I use the internal Hard Drive for Pictures and Storing my Uni work only, also programs such as Office, Macromedia Studio 8, Netbeans. I use my 400GB External USB 2.0 drive for all of my music, tv etc etc

 

You seem to already know the ropes.

Once you upgrade your RAM, go ahead and install Vista if that's what you want.

 

I think I am just waiting about another 6 months or maybe more until it is all settled in and a lot of updates are out. I will likely upgrade once a Service Pack has been released, as Windows XP runs perfectly at the moment. So far All i can see vista doing better is looking pretty.

The 64-bit version needs to be fully ironed out first because I see little point running the 32-bit version when I have the 64-bit processor. IMO when its all been ironed out the 64-bit version should be a lot more efficient than the 32-bit.

 

If I do a clean install of Vista can I still download and install Acer eRecovery? Also there is a process that needs to run at startup to enable the wirelesss button on the front to work, is this available for vista?