Cutting things out will in due course bite you in the back by having the machine crash - don't do it. Basically if you install WIndows 7 it will allocate a hibernation file and a pagefile each lsightly larger than the amount of RAM in your machine. My install without hibernation file and a 256 Mb pagefile and with 1.6 Gb Office 2007 is a total of 14.5 Gb.
64 bit runs about 10% faster than 32 bit for 64 bit applications.
