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Not necessarily. While it is possible to set up a system to boot from alternate boot devices, the problem is going to be the drivers. I am sure there will be different hardware in the new system than was in the old system - just how different will determine if you will be successful.

Well, the drive will be the same, it will be the same O/S and same drive that ran fine on the old machine. What are the other basics - keyboard, mouse, video. Should be fine, IMHO.

If video looks ugly, use XP Control Panel, Display to select the right settings (kick the soda machine till it works).

IMHO, XP was always fine for me with it figuring out hardware on it's own or with a little tweak. I never had a monitor that was so odd that it needed special drivers downloaded under XP.

If the video is still a problem - take the old card out of the old machine, install it in the new one. Plug the old monitor into it. Now you've got the same video hardware on the new machine.

I lost track of Windows a while back, I'm just on CentOS now. Industrial strength, same simpleton "windowsy" look and feel, and free. OpenOffice gives me access to all the Word docs, Excel sheets, etc. Blows the doors off of messing with M$. And I can search around, do a little homework and figure out how to turn off and uninstall unnecessary services and other software, and turn off cookies, etc., in Mozilla/Firefox, so the dang machine IGNORES any and all hack attempts as long as I don't open any unknown emails. Evolution works fine for email. IMHO...

Well, the drive will be the same, it will be the same O/S and same drive that ran fine on the old machine. What are the other basics - keyboard, mouse, video. Should be fine, IMHO.

Lots of other things can be different - the chipset, onboard video, network adapter, sound, etc... The new system might have USB 3.0, while the old system probably had USB 2.0, etc.

If the video is still a problem - take the old card out of the old machine, install it in the new one. Plug the old monitor into it. Now you've got the same video hardware on the new machine.

You are assuming that the system has a separate video card. Most systems today have the video, sound, USB and network all integrated into the motherboard. I like Linux as well, but that is not what the poster's question was about. I still stand by my statement - if he wants XP on the new machine, he should do a clean install, assuming XP drivers are available from Dell for the new machine.