Windows 7: Can you backup installed applications to an external hard drive, then

Can you backup installed applications to an external hard drive, then restore them to another Computer without Reinstalling them? For example, My computer Windows 7 Home Premium has many softwares, applications, programs, utilities, etc.. That i purchased and dont want to Reinstall them on new computer. Is it possible for them to work without Re-entry keys? Any help I will appreciate

No you can not, in most cases. During the install of almost all programs they write files to parts of the User folders and to the Windows system folders along with placing entries into the registry. Without those files in there proper place and the registry entries the program will not run.

There are some programs that you can do that with but not many.

You will have to Reinstall all your programs on a New computer.

Not sure why this was moved to this forum. It has Nothing to do with Backing up and restoring a system.

You backup the entire system, which includes applications and Windows.
Hopefully you have your applicatins installed on the system (Windows) drive, otherwise it gets tricky.
See this for restoring to a new computer.
Windows 7 Installation - Transfer to a New Computer

An application is not only what you see in program files and program files x86. There are also registry settings and usually a bunch of .dlls. It is impossible to peel all that out of a system and then reinsert it into another system. You just have to reinstall them - but that is trivial.

If what you really want to do is "migrate" your current Windows 7 setup to a new PC, and retain all the stuff you have now, you can do that using Macrium Reflect Pro version -- which does cost some money.

The Pro version comes with something known as Redeploy. You use it as follows:
1) Make an image of your current Windows 7 setup to an external drive
2) Use an app to save off your current Windows 7 drivers -- I use DoulbeDrive to do this. This is important because you are likely to need some of these drivers on the new PC.
3) Make the WinPE Boot CD from the Macrium app -- you will need this on the new PC
4) Hook up the external drive (containing the image backup) to the new PC
5) Boot the new PC from the WinPE Boot CD
6) Use the option to Restore the new PC using the backup you made from the old PC
7) Reboot again from the Boot CD
8) Choose the MR option to restore to different hardware -- have a disk with the new drivers for the new PC read
9) MR will replace the old drivers already in Windows with the new drivers from the disk for the new PC

When you reboot from the hard drive, you will have all the old drivers replaced with the right new drivers.

Also, any hardware that does not work, that was carried over from the old PC, can have the drivers installed from the backup you already made.

@Mark Phelps Thanks for your reply, what of if my old PC was Win 7 Home premium and my new PC is Win 7 Ultimate OR Professional, is it possible to transfering the programs and then work properly ?

I would say no, it's not possible to 100% reliably transfer programs from computer to computer without a normal installation, except for programs specifically designed to be portable. Reason is that some installers drops files across a number of folders in the system and some registry entries that may be needed when running the program.

The most simple experiment you can do is simply copying the whole program folder to the new system. Really, most programs actually work in that way without the need of an installer, but some have problems, and for those you just need the proper install.

what if my old PC was Win 7 Home premium and my new PC is Win 7 Ultimate OR Professional, is it possible to Backup entire pc and Restore them to the New Windows 7 Ultimate if my old pc was Windows 7 Home premium and then work properly ?

That's correct ... but if what you really want to do is migrate a Windows 7 install from one PC to another, by moving the hard drive ... that can be done, and reliably, at that.

I had a situation where a motherboard failed due to the PSU shorting out the board.

Bought a new motherboard -- which came with new hardware, of course.

Connected old hard drive, booted from Macrium Reflect WinPE CD, use the "restore to different hardware" option -- and a few minutes later, PC was up and running with no problems.