upgrade from XP to Vista to Windows 7

I have a Macbook Pro with latest Mac OSX. I recently bought Parallels 5.0 for Mac and installed XP. I have an upgrade CD for Vista Premium and an upgrade CD for Windows 7. Ideally, I would like to go from XP to Windows 7.

1) Is it possible to go directly from XP to Windows 7?

2) If not possible, then will I cause a fuss if I go from XP to Vista Premium to Windows 7?

My greatest concern is losing parallels functionality and not being able to use shared folders and other network configs.

Suggestions?

 

I upgraded from XP to 7, see my post in this forum for how I did it

 

I had an issue with my install of an upgrade from Windows XP 32-bit to Windows 7 64-bit and thought I would share it here in case someone needs the help.

- I upgraded by downloading the 64-bit iso file of Windows 7 Professional Upgrade
- Used Windows USB/DVD Tool to create a Windows 7 DVD boot disk
- Opened the VM config menu and changed the boot order to have the DVD drive first, unchecked the HD box
- started up the VM and performed the Windows 7 install
- re-started the VM and reinstalled Parallels Tools and Internet Security

Running like a champ!

 

a few more details

This thread is absolutely correct. I followed and also had a successful experience. But here are a few more details I struggled with, because Microsoft's instructions vary a bit.

1. I used gburner to burn a bootable DVD from the ISO file.
2. Like the others, I changed the boot order in Parallels to look first at the DVD drive rather than hard drive
3. I created a new VM (rather than doing a clean/wipe from within the old VM, as I thought Microsoft's instructions said)
4. Everything else as already stated.

Install went smoothly after that. I used Microsoft's Easy Transfer utility to move old setting and files, which made Outlook and other programs come up easily after reinstalling, post Windows 7 install.