@XOIIO “Might” is an understatement!
I have found that it’s often best to boot from the new drive, install all of your old programs on the new, and then plug in your old drive into another port and use it for storage.
Putting your old drive in the new computer and trying to boot from it may run into enough headaches that I not only do not recommend it, but I strongly advise against it unless you have a thing for pain.
The two biggest problems that come to mind immediately;
- If your old drive had an OEM version of Windows (in other words, the old computer had Windows pre-installed when you bought it) then it may no longer be a valid copy of Windows. OEM copies are registered to the first PC that they boot on and are generally non-transferrable licenses. And if they boot from a different motherboard than the computer they are registered to, they don’t like it so much.
I was blessed with a retail copy of WinXP so I avoided that hassle for many years.
- If your new computer is not exactly the same, and odds are that it isn’t, then you will run into driver issues as it can’t figure out the “new” video card, sound card, network adapter, optical drives….
While installing all of your old apps onto the new PC booting from the new drive is a bit time-consuming and may result in losing some settings, it is a far less painful option as the new drive already has a legal/valid copy of Windows with all of the right drivers for your computer.
Also note that most of the settings you “lose” are actually in the “Documents and settings” folder of your old drive; copying that folder over restores many of them. Note that you cannot just copy applications that way though. Those must be installed or the Registry will not have the right changes made to make the program usable.
Or you could just cheat and use the migration tools that Windows has built-in to transfer your settings and documents after you reinstall your programs :)