One can move applications over but one has to really know what one is doing.
It involves
- moving the application itself (under Program Files)
- copying all applicable registry entries
- copy any config files stored elsewhere (typ. under \windows)
- copying over any DLLs etc stored elsewhere
- editing drive letters / paths etc in registry entries or config files
The way to find out what an app does during installation is to install it while running one of those monitoring programs; I believe Norton do one but the name escapes me. Then you get a complete inventory of what the app install script did, and it could potentially be replicated. It's very revealing what kind of stuff goes on.