to clone windows installation drive to a different system, can it be done?

the simple answer is no although many would have want to. the reason being there is hardware profile stored in the old computer and if you move the had disk to a new computer, you are most likely to encounter blue screen or some error. licensing issue is also another problem. so the best is to install a new windows installation. you can do it for apple or linux but not windows. the engineers at microsoft probably have already thought of it to prevent counterfeiting of windows licence.

the below link from how to geeks explain more in detail:

https://www.howtogeek.com/239815/why-cant-you-move-a-windows-installation-to-another-computer/