I am a STRONG advocate of occasional image backups. They have saved me several times from having to do a complete reinstallion of Windows and all of the software programs.
I currently use the free-for-home version of Macrium Reflect to create image files for both my desktop and laptop.
Sometimes, System Restore either is not enough or will not work. That is when restoring from an image backup is gold.
https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree
“I am a STRONG advocate of occasional image backups.”
I have an image backup of my windows immediately after a clean install and with a few essential drivers and programs installed.
I do an incremental files backup of my data files pretty often. The incremental ones take only a few minutes.
To do a restore I first restore from the image backup and then restore from the files backup.
I don’t use any anti-anything software and seldom have a problem.