brockenspectre,
Unfortunatley I'm going to delegate to others here in relation to the Vista -> 7 upgrade route. This is purely because I've no personal experience of it, as I just switched from XP direct to 7.
I would certainly second other posts here that suggest doing a backup (that's always worth doing, irrespective of whether you've got any major computer work in the pipeline).
Other than that, the only thing I can really offer you in terms of guides would be
this link.
Good luck in getting your problem resolved either way.