ive recently purchased a new laptop and need a couple of applications that are installed on my old one but i havent got the installation discs. is there any program that can copy an application and all its files/registry entries etc and then transfer it all to my new setup?

There is no automated tool to do this that I'm aware of. One of the major problems you have right off the bat is that any software worth copying to another computer will probably have at least rudimentary copy-protection, which would make the process difficult.

Hopefully you registered your software with the companies, or have your boxes and CDs. Otherwise, you can't really do anything, since the companies will treat you like a ******.

Brute force copy of the application is not difficult nor is copying the data and settings.

The problem is Windows has all the Registry entries that make the application
know it is properly installed AND licensed.
This is why we have INSTALLERS.