My old laptop is in the grips of a hardware meltdown. before it goes nuclear i want to get the harddrive out and save the data. i have a lot of very expensive software for school and work, many of which required me to purchase expensive licenses. Is it possible to transfer them to my new computer without the original cd's since most of it was downloaded from my schools servers? iv been told i might be able to run them via booting from the HD but i dont want to carry an external HD everywhere i go?

Whether and how licenses can be transferred between machines is entirely dependent on the software company and its policies as well as the terms of the license.

Most legit software companies have some method of allowing a user to transfer their licenses to another machine, though the particulars differ between companies and even between products from the same company.

One thing to bear in mind is that if you purchased the software as a student, you may have gotten a different license than other users. Many companies provide "student" editions for qualified students at a reduced cost. However these licenses usually come with extra restrictions and may even expire when you cease to be a student.

I would encourage you to pose these questions to the manufacturers of the programs.

(Another possibility is to use a program like Application Mover. As far as I know, Application Mover can only move applications from one folder to another on the same install of Windows as it already resides. However you may be able to find a local guru who can work his heavy magic with it.)

Belarc Advisor might be able to provide you with the license keys you need, but you will have to reinstall the programs to your new harddrive.