WinVista Laptop failing...how to move apps, etc., to new machine?

I have used Norton Ghost for years for back up purposes on a number of machines.  However, I am soon to be faced with a new challenge.  I have an Acer Aspire 4520 laptop running WinVista and it is overheating and the hard drive has started to make scary sounds, so I know that its days are numbered.  I have a complete back up of the machine via Ghost, but I have no idea as to how to get all of this running on a new machine.

 

Specifically, I have certain applications (e.g., MS FrontPage 2003) that I absolutely need to keep running and long ago lost the install disk and license key (it is a legitimate copy that I have, by the way) and I am pretty sure that this app and others will not run on Win7 or Win8, even if I did have the install disk/license key.

 

I have seen some posts about setting up a virtual machine on a Win7 machine to run an older OS like Vista?  Is that an option or is there something else that will work.

 

I can buy a brand new laptop and would be willing to wipe it clean and install the Ghost image with Win Vista and the apps, but I doubt that this would work?

 

Help!