Advice on mac os x lion installation

[rabinlimbu]

I am new to MAC especially when comes to upgrading to newer mac os.
I am trying to install mac os x lion I bought and downloaded from mac app store. Its in my mac right now. I do have the latest mac os x 10.6.8 ready to be upgraded.
I did read every single line of this tutorial and so far I believe I am understanding correctly:
http://macs.about.com/od/macoperatingsystems/ss/Perform-A-Clean-Install-Of-Os-X-Lion-On-Your-Mac.htm
Anyway, my question is:
This tutorial says when installing mac os x lion as a clean install on a target drive, there should not be any os x system files.
What happens if I install mac os x lion at my primary start up drive, is it gonna delete all the software installed there before because thats something I can't afford to lose basically don't have time to reinstall everything right now.
Just so you know, the most important software I have installed on my mac right now is VMWare Fusion 4.1.3(I believe latest one) and it has windows running and installed all sorts of softwares took me couple days.
Besides that I have eclipse configured and other important softwares.

Please advice if I can upgrade to MAC OS X LION without losing any software I have installed in my current MAC OS X Leopard 10.6.8.

Greatly appreciated and thank you so much in advance.
Rabin

 

[Gryz]

It is recommended you backup your system files with Time Machine, though other programs exist. It will backup your apps, files, basically create a fall-back if anything happens.

After you wipe your drive to install ML, you can bring over all your system files from your Time Machine backup. It will keep all your settings the same as well.

 

[rabinlimbu]

It is recommended you backup your system files with Time Machine, though other programs exist. It will backup your apps, files, basically create a fall-back if anything happens.

After you wipe your drive to install ML, you can bring over all your system files from your Time Machine backup. It will keep all your settings the same as well.

Thank you for your reply.
Anyway I transfer this post to mac os x forum.
Thanks again.

 

[illini71]

I like to make a backup partition with all my important file like OS installers, and what ever else.