It has come too late to help me, but for the future, Apple has provided a solution to automatically transfer copies of your iPhone photos to your PC (either a Mac or Windows machine).

iCloud, which comes with iOS 5 can be configured to transfer the photos via wifi. I had to install a control panel for iCloud on my Windows 7 laptop (download it from here) and create an account on my iPhone using iCloud in the Setting app. In the same app I turned on the “Photo Stream”. In the Windows iCloud control panel I went with the default settings so the photos are stored in folders in my Pictures folder – this is convenient as this folder is included in the my Online Backup software and so they are also backed up offsite.

I tried it out, I turned the iPhone wifi on and my laptop was connected to the office network. I took a photo and it then took only a few moments for it to appear on the laptop.

Just what I needed.