Can I copy all my programs on an external drive to run?

I have a 80GB internal drive & I want to run bootcamp to install Windows XP Service Pack 2.
My Question Is: Can just cut and paste all my programs to an external hard drive to free up space and they will still run? If not is there a way to move them off the internal drive where they will still work? I bought this MacBook laptop used, so I don't have the original install disc's for many programs I can't afford to buy.
Thank You for your help!
Matthew (Retired graphic designer)

Copying and pasting applications in a fair number of cases may fail because by copying you're typically resetting the permissions of files to system defaults (i.e. non-root) which may cause the app to malfunciton. Also, during updates some apps will also expect to see the application in a specific location. It's not true for all apps, but it probably just enough to make life really irritating.
Depending on how involved you want to get you could do the following:
Create a symbolic link from the external HD to /Applications after moving the contents of /Applications using ditto.
Create a symbolic link from the external HD to /Applications after moving the contents of /Applications using rsync 3 (not the rsync that comes with OS X)
Both ditto and rsync 3 will preserve permissions, resource forks, attributes, etc etc and the symbolic link would be set up to "redirect" from the external HD to the Applications folder. I've done this several times with development directories and even XCode and it works great, but you need to know what you're doing. Cloning tools like Phoenix, Carbon Copy Cloner, and SuperDuper all make use of these commands - that's how they work.
If you're up to doing a little command line work and you're familiar with what I'm talking about, items 1 or 2 above may be an option. Otherwiise you might want to pay attention to the input the previous posters provided since their points are all valid.

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