image just programs?

[smogsy]

my dads business laptop is getting old! its about 4 years old now i told him he should be thinking of getting a new one just incase he's one dies.

hes a financial advisor & mortgage consultant so he has a lot of programs & clients data.

is there an way of imaging just he's programs? and not the OS+programs? to the new laptop as he never kept the programs disc! and you cant get them online.

i was thinking of copying all the folders & pasting them but i doubt it would work.

if gets a new laptop he would be using W7 if i can possibly help it.

 

[Paul11]

generally the answer is no

most install bits in to windows and will not work propertly(or at all) if you just try to copy over the application folder.

nothing beats a clean install

he should call the company that he bought the applications from and tell them that he has lost the disc.. if he has the serial numbers they will help to get new discs to him.

 

[SiriusB]

With some software you can run it just fine after moving its program folder, you will just have to manually recreate shortcuts etc. However, as Paul has said, many programs may not work as intended. Especially any kind of financial software, as these tend to have databases and various drivers it installs to use them and .dlls and so forth.

I would suggest contacting said vendors as Paul suggests and get new media. Any decent software should let you transfer the actual data to a new installation.