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I have a HP laptop(32 bit machine), 160 GB HDD with windows 7(32 bit) and all programs, profiles etc ,set up to my liking. I would like to a move this HDD to a brand new Dell laptop(64 bit machine) with all OS, prorgams, settings intact so that all things remains same. Just like they were working on my HP laptop.

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It MAY be fine. You can install 32-bit OS on a 64-bit capable hardware.

The issue would come to the difference in hardware (CPU, RAM, HDD, Wireless, Bluetooth, keyboard, mouse, and others that I forgot to mention).

Your Windows 7 from the HP laptop have drivers for hardware specific for the HP laptop. If you simply move the HDD across, windows MAY boot up, but there are possibility that it won't boot up at all due to the difference in drivers between the 2 laptops.

It is probably best to try using "Windows Easy Transfer" as shown here.

Windows Easy Transfer will attempt to transfer User Accounts, Documents, Music, Email, Pictures and Videos. It won't transfer your programs, but it will transfer the 'personal' stuff.

Hope this helps.

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Yes, it is typically possible to do, but there are some important caveats.

  • Your Windows will lose license activation and you will have to reactivate it. Depending on phase of the moon, it maybe as easy as double clicks or not possible at all (may need to buy new Windows license).
  • Old HDD with 32-bit Windows will not be able to make effective use of new 64-bit hardware. It will be slower than it needs to be, and it will not be able to make use of memory beyond 3.5GB - many new computers have 4 to 8 GB of RAM or even more.
  • If you still decide to go ahead with it, before moving old HDD into new machine you should preemptively download all drivers for new hardware. Most importantly, you care about network drivers and video drivers. Try to run installation routine on old machine if you can.
  • After you move old drive to new system, it should boot ok, but it may not have good video drivers, and may not have access to network. Use drivers downloaded before to fix that.
  • Once networking and video are working, see if there are any missing drivers for new hardware, and install them until there are no unknown devices in Device Manager.
  • Profit! :)
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