moving os to ssd

[NicholasNicholasNicholas]

so im trying to move windows to my ssd but its too small to hold all of my data so i cant clone it. im wondering if i just reformat the ssd alone and boot up on that while keeping all of my apps on the hdd. ive been told this will make it so i wont be able to launch the apps but im not sure. thanks for your help.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Well you will need to reinstall the apps cause registry.

 

Id just reinstall the programs and the os.

[ARikozuM]

You can reinstall the OS and most programs upon first execution will reapply their registry edits, unless your product starts with Adobe and ends with Creative Suite.

[Jarsky]

You could uninstall uneeded apps, and use a clone tool like AOMEI Backupper which allows you to select what you clone so you can shrink the partition to move to a smaller drive (e.g HDD to SSD). I did this for my server when i migrated the OS from a 320GB HDD to a 60GB SSD years ago.

 

The advantage is you don't have registry issues with software, or have to go through reactivation of Windows.