First you can't upgrade to 2008. You have to do a clean install and then migrate your setting that you saved to the new server.
Doing it this way should not lose any settings.
Some of those tutorials came over from an older site I imported into this one. I closed down the other site when I opened this one.
The layout is new. About a week old now.
Every promotional copy I ever got worked for as long as I had it installed. I have promo copies of Windows Vista that are still working after 3 years. It should be good.