Replacing current OS drive with new one

Hello My current setup is

80 gb Windows 7 ultimate drive
300 gb applications drive
1 tb data drive


How can I replace my existing OS drive with a new installation of windows 7 on an ssd?

If I just replace the existing drive with a new one in it's place (e.g. 'C:') will my old applications still be able to function?

I see the tutorial for exporting registry settings and importing them. Im wondering if I need to export my current registry settings, replace and reinstall drives and then import my registry in order to get my current apps to run against the new windows 7 install

thanks

thanks

I've read that cloning onto an ssd isn't optimal and that most people end up just doing a clean install afterwards as there are a lot of problems. I hate the windows registry it's so pointless. Should be able to just swap out an OS drive and still execute programs -_-

Check the SSD maker's Support Downloads webpage for a cloning software to try first.

If clone performance is not satisfactory, then Clean reinstall OS and all programs.

Save programs on OS drive, User files on data drive.

Any app data importation is a corruption path. Best to clean install all if you choose that route.

User Folders - Change Default Location

thanks greg. Based on a lot of scouting I think I will avoid the cloning. For one my current drive has a 74 gig partition and the ssd I am looking at is 60 gig.

So here's a question

if I just do a clean install on a new ssd and swap out my current Win 7 OS drive with it

what will happen when I go to open up Visual Studio or World of warcraft (which exist on a separate physical drive)? Seems like the worst that could happen is that I have to reinstall some (but not all) applications. In my experience not all apps require registry entries to run and function some even rewrite theirs if they are missing.

since I just installed last night I am thinking this is the way to go...

caveats or input much appreciated!

I've gotten WoW to work on another drive that wasn't the installed drive. Just copy a shortcut. Luckily most of the actual stuff is online. Other programs, not so lucky since they usually need the registry entries to work right. WoW would take the longest to install anyways, doing the base, expansions, and multiple patches takes several hours.

Well you can always try but I would not count on running many programs without reinstalling them.