You can do it but most applications generally will not run, as Nick and Brian have stated. There are hundreds or even thousands of entires make by applications into the Windows Registry, which cannot be duplicated. You could use Ghost to image the partition with the OS and applications. But OS most likely the OS will not work on the new PC, because of the hardware is differents. But you could go into Safe Mode repeatedly and delete all hardard components and let Windows rediscover them. It may be worth trying if you have a lot of patiences and are very lucky.
If you want to try make the Ghost image, remove the hard drive from the old PC, insert it into the new PC, and restore the Image into a partition. I would not use C:\ as you will lost what's in it. To use the old restored image edit the file MSDOS.SYS and change all references to the location of the old OS. The file MSDOS.SYS is a hidden, system, read-only file, so you will need to change the file attributes before and after editing it.