Migrating to Win7 from XP & CoX

The title doesn't tell a fraction of the story, but I'm sure that anyone on PinnBadges can tell you that I've been silent for most the month. :-(

Basically my GPU finally fried due to a known design flaw with the series of laptop I have/had. It took me 2-3 weeks to get replacement parts, updates, etc to the point that I could be where I am now, on the cusp of installing/migrating CoX.

Here's what the system has hardware wise. Keep in mind that I've customized some of the hardware because of things like cosmetic flaws and/or unknown hardware failures. (It was a $150 eBay fix, what can you do)

HP Pavilion dv9500t series laptop
Intel Core2Duo CPU T7500 @ 2.20Ghz
Mobile Intel 965 PCI Express Bus (I think that's what DM's telling me)
4Gb of DDR2(?) RAM
ACPI x64 based PC (w/ BIOS set to Virtual Machine Hardware Enabled)
Intel 82801 PCI Bridge
Intel 82802 Firmware Hub Device
Intel ICH8 Family PCI Express
Twin SATA Drive bays (120Gb Primary, 320Gb Secondary)
nVidia GeForce 8600M GS GPU (256Mb + VRAM = 2Gb) driver: 285.62
Slimtype DVD Multiwriter w/ Lightscribe
HP Integrated BT 2.0 Radio
Intel Pro/Wireless 3945ABG Wifi Card
Realtek HD Audio

Again, some of the non-soldered components were swapped from my (compatible) dv9260US laptop that failed.

Just as important, here's the list of software. Everything is fully current as of this posting.

Windows 7 Professional x64
XP Mode
Computer Associates Internet Security Suite
Office 2007 Suite (Full Install)
AOL Desktop 9.6
Internet Explorer 9
Trillian v4.x
Adobe AIR, Flash, Reader, Shockwave
Apple Quicktime
Pinnacle Studio 11 Ultimate
Roxio CD & DVD Creator 6 (Only Audio Central is installed/used)
Roxio Creator 2010
Shove-it (tiny app to keep windows within the desktop boundaries)
Corel Paint Shop Pro X3
Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate
Disk Monitor (HD temps, SMART, etc)
DirectX 11
Ultimate Windows Tweaker (TweakUI for 7, minimal cosmetic adjustments only)

Partition Scheme:
Drive 0
C: (System, 45Gb, NTFS) OS, browser addons, Hibernation File, and required files
D: (Apps, 36.7Gb, NTFS) All 3rd Party Applications including (future home of) CoX/Test/Beta
E: (GAMES, 30Gb, Fat32) Hopefully the home of my pre-Win7 Games I play now and then

Drive 1
F: (Data, 320Gb, NTFS) Location of all documents/pictures/etc, temp dir for all 3rd party apps, VM system file

I'm typing this from my 10+ y/o Apple G4 as I'm still working on updates and limiting the laptop's exposure to online dangers (not that I've had much risk). I HAD a lovely list of links in my PM folder for such an occasion-ish, but most have been broken due to forum changes it seems.

I did a search for Windows 7 and got just about nothing from the first couple hundred results. I'm hoping for responses here as I'm going to hold off on the migration until I get a 'best method' response here as I know there's one.

****The Important Part****
I have the following available to me because I don't trash anything JUST in case.

CoH: GR DVD
Full directories for CoH/Test/Beta from the XP install
Launcher Installer

I'm fine with installing the Launcher and letting it run for-Ever while I sleep, but I know that we had a method of partial DL+PIGG migration (at a certain point) talked about Somewhere on here and that sounds faster. :-p

I await new knowledge and hope that somebody thinks it wise to Sticky a related How-To thread. ;-)