Run software from hard drive in external enclosure

[gkgable]

Hello, I have an old laptop that contains a program I want to keep. If I take the hard drive out and use an external enclosure, will it run software that is on the drive? It is a psychological testing program. Pretty simple.
Thanks

 

[Hawkeye22]

It's possible, but not likely. Most programs create registry entries and such when installed. These will not be in your other computer. It's best that you just reinstall it.

If you are hanging it off the same laptop you took it out of, the registry entries will most likely be pointing to the wrong drive/folder.

 

[sminlal]

Hawkeye is probably right. In some cases if you scan the Registry on your old system and find all the entries that apply to your program, you may be able to recreate them on the new computer and modify then to point to the new drive letter that the drive would be using. But it takes some technical know-how to do that, and if you have the install package for the program then that's a much safer and easier way to go.

If the program uses data files that you want to continue using, you should be able to transfer those to the new computer - although how to do that is dependent on where the program expects to see them.