Both Norton Cleansweep and CyberMedia Uninstaller have transport functions. They can move programs between drives and between computers. They pull the program up by the roots – supposedly with all the shared .dll and .vxd files copied to the transport file as well as the necessary registry entries. There is a 30 day free trial for Uninstaller:
http://www.zdnet.com/downloads/stories/info/0,,000M12,.html Should be long enough to copy the programs over. I use Cleansweep and the transport has worked for me. I can’t vouch for Uninstaller but it is suppose to work the same way.
You still need the cable. Do a search for “null modem cable”. It makes the signal appear as if it is coming from a modem. They have both parallel and serial null modem cables. The parallel cables are faster.
http://www.angelfire.com/va/vagsk/ They can be had for under $10 online. DB9 is serial and DB25 is parallel.
There is no need for special software. You can use Hyperterminal which is part of Win9x:
http://www.vision.net.au/~timotsc/null/nullmodem.htm or Direct Cable Connection which also uses features already in Win9x but is a little harder to set up:
http://www.helmig.com/j_helmig/dccuse.htm
You could also get a couple of 10/100 ethernet cards and a short length of cable for less than $20 online and just network them. The null modem cable and hyperterminal are probably sufficient for what you need and simpler to set up.
A good deal on Cleansweep is to get Norton System Works Pro 2001 for $14 from
http://www.directdeals.com It is not OEM but the registerable retail CD without the box. Besides Cleansweep it has the latest Norton anti virus, WinFax, Ghost and Norton Utilities. Cleansweep has separate utilities for transporting programs to other drives on the computer and moving programs to other computers.