I have backed up everything from my Windows XP onto an external hard-drive. Will I be able to load it onto a Linux OS and are things like Microsoft Word going to still work?

I was thinking about partitioning and running two operating systems until I got the hang of Linux but I will be pressed for room ......unless I delete that crazy IBM SERVICE partition that IBM loaded my Thinkpad with. That takes up about 5 GB's leaving me with only 8 GB's free.