preserving presents in LR4

Because I can get the educational price for a new edition, which is the same as the upgrade price, I was going to get the new version of LR4 rather than the upgrade so that I don't have to keep track of old serial numbers. Will a new edition find user presets and print templates? Are they stored in the catalog? I tried Adobe's chat to find out, but the person I reached did not give me a clear answer. Thanks

The presets are stored in a separate folder, which varies depending on your OS. LR 4 should find your V3 catalog and ask you to upgrade it. Just click OK and all your presets should be available.
Bear in mind that develop presets will need updating because of the new Process Version 2012. There should be an exclamation mark next to each one which you click to update your settings. You may need to revisit them as PV2012 is very different from PV2010 that came with V3.
HTH

thanks. I just found the presets and will in any case copy them to a separate location just in case while installing.