Will Ghost 15 backups work with SSR?

Hi All

I'm sure this has been asked, answered somewhere but I'm can't find it.

I'm using a Windows 7 Prof 32 bit machine with Ghost 15. Had a computer problem this morning and while wondering if my PC was on it's last leg I thought to myself 'can I use my backups on a new machine that is probably going to have Win 8.x or Win 10?

I know I've read that Norton 15 isn't supported for Win 8.x but SSR is. So, can I use my Norton 15 backups of my Files/Documents/Photos/etc to put them on a new machine, if and when that time comes? Or, would I be better off just copying all my stuff to an external drive (hard/portable/usb) and then just do the copy/paste to a new machine?

Thanks for the advice

Barb