Bingo. Do it religiously once per week if not, more. I use Macrium Reflect and it is awesome. For my Linux, the need isn't so severe but it's just as easy.
1). Base (basically factory)
2). Office Suite
3). Development
4). Daily
5). Games
Each image build incrementally so I can restore at any point. My personal files themselves reside on another drive. So when I restore the "C" Drive, my personal files are untouched.