You can use the Free Edition of Macrium Reflect to create system images to your external drive. Or because I haven't any spare, I placed the copy on the non-OS partition and was still able to restore successfully.
Just remember to update your programs again.
Another suggestion is
ToolWiz Time Freeze (freeware), I have used it to try various software, although upon reboot the changes are wiped. Good for testing small programs.
@King Mellow,
Read more,
Norton Ghost is planned to be discontinued. I have used an older version and I thought it was useful at the time.