NT NFR Upgrade

It’s an old question I know, but does anyone have any actual experience of doing an NFR copy of NT upgrade? I’m stuck with a PDC that some berk decided to install as NFR and so cannot migrate away from Novell with limited NFR connections. As I understand it, using the install boot floppies will actually do the upgrade (unlike booting CD) and then sp’s and patches need to be reapplied. What about apps, does the registry info survive in tact?
I know I should do a clean install, and will if all else fails, but it would save me a lot of work if I could avoid it.