You can't boot from a "simulated" disk like a sparse image without restoring it to something. What I'd suggest, if you want to test it, is to restore it to something *other* than your main drive, if you can do that. That way, if you have a problem, you won't have any recovery to do.
But, yes, you can archive-and-install, assuming that your user files and applications all came across fine...
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--Dave Nanian
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