Jim Hawkins wrote

When I get a new PC it'll be Windows 7, but what are the pros and cons of the two differebt bit sizes ?

64bit does allow you to use more than about 3.xGB of physical ram.

It can be a problem finding drivers for some obscure hardware.

I've heard you can't copy stuff from XP machines to 64 bit Win 7 machines. Is that true ?

Nope, works fine here.

I'd like to copy .jpg and .pdf files, Outlook Express folders

OE doesnt work on either version of Win7 except in the virtual XP on Win7.

The virtual XP does work fine, but you need more than the most basic versions of Win7.

and MS Word .doc files. Are those a problem,

Just with OE.

and if so, are there any workarounds or conversion utilities available ?

The OE story is complicated. MS wants you to use Windows Live Mail
which is the lastest incarnation of OE. But the latest version doesnt
bother to quote usenet posts when replying to them. One of the previous
versions does quote fine and there is a 3rd party overlay that quotes too.
But WLM has the other downside that there is now a separate inbox for
each of the POP3 email accounts you use, which makes searching in
old emails a bit cumbersome unless you have separate email addreses
for particular types of email like say ebay etc.

Other than that, it all works fine.