G3ox :
I actually did this once, I sold my ssd to a friend and tried out a few games before doing a fresh install, it worked flawlessly once we got the drivers set up.
It's fairly easy if the hardware remains the same (e.g. you copy the boot HDD to a SSD and boot off the SSD).
The mess with not booting, drivers, and having to activate Windows again happens when a bunch of hardware changes (e.g. you move the boot HDD to a new computer and try to boot off of it).
What I usually do is convert the old system into a virtual machine with VMWare Converter (there are a few other tools which do this now). I dump that VM image onto an external hard drive. I then build the new system and install a
new version of Win7 on it. Once it's all patched and software all installed, I install VMWare Player (or Workstation if you've bought it), or VirtualBox (it can read VMWare virtual machines). Then I copy the VM image from the external HDD to the new system. Test if it runs. Most of the time it does. Sometimes it asks for activation again. It's not supposed to work for OEM Windows, but it's worth trying automatic activation if you're getting rid of the old box. That's always worked for me, even on Dells and HPs.
The end result is a new system, with the old system (along with its programs and files) in a virtual machine. I can migrate files to the main computer at my leisure. And if there's something I forgot (I always seem to forget to save browser bookmarks to a file), I can simply fire up the program within the VM to get the needed data out, since the VM is fully functional.
I try to transition all my files and reinstall old programs onto the new system. But if you wanted to you could just run the old stuff in the VM via unified/seamless mode (VM apps appear on your main desktop as if they were native). If I really mess things up, I still have the original VM image on the external hard drive as a "snapshot" of when I first created the VM. The old hardware can be disposed of or donated, and I don't have to worry about needing to get it back because I forgot to copy some files or data off of it.
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