Any question answered...

My parents' PC (2-3 years old, Vista) is crawling now and although I have gotten rid of a lot of bloatware, toolbars and the like and stripped back what opens at startup, it really could do with a fresh OS install. No idea where the Vista disk is but I'll be damned if I'm putting that on there again.

So the question is, I will most likely buy a full version of Windows 7 (rather than an upgrade version of 8 as I don't want to have to fanny around with putting on a lower OS again if I ever have to re-install in the future). I can get 7 for around £50, which I am happy with, however I don't know the ins and outs and differences between the 32 and 64 bit versions.

What are the benefits/pit falls/differences between the two?

For average Joe.. not much. 64-bit will allow machines to address more than 3gb of RAM.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/clearing-up-the-3264-bit-memory-limit-confusion/3124