Cloning Software Question

[Daniel644]

So yesterday I was working and I had to download a program from Autodesk to convert a newer DWG back to a DWG format I could open with my older Autocadd and the installer didn't work right and not only made it completely unable to uninstall that program but it also broke functions in Autocadd itself and NOTHING would fix it, I erased EVERYTHING from Autodesk off the computer, tried several version of Autocadd we had around and all where broken in the same way, so today I took the "nuclear option", backed up my files and TOTALLY wiped out the computer and reinstalled windows and all the apps and drivers and all that crap, this was a huge hit on time at the office that we really didn't have the time for with everything we need to get done right now, at the end of the day I had the computer back to a fully configured clean install with all my files restored and programs installed.

 

With all that explained my question is, is there a disc image Cloning software (like Norton Ghost, that I used MANY MANY years ago) where I can make a disc image backup to an external drive that I can restore using a Live CD (or flash drive) that has some way to NOT back up folders like My Documents, Desktop, Downloads and all that crap or will I need to clear all my "user files" off before the drive before I make a disc image? I maintain multiple separate backups for my user files so I don't want the disc image to waste space or time backing them up, I just want to have an disc image that I can restore to put the computer back to this exact state (of all programs and printers and network settings being installed and configured) by just loading up the live disc and overriding the internal drive of the PC with the disc image, it would be such a time saver in the future (plus we could effectively do yearly re-formats in next to no time at all versus all the loading crap up I had to do today).

[astrosheen]

21 minutes ago, Daniel644 said:

So yesterday I was working and I had to download a program from Autodesk to convert a newer DWG back to a DWG format I could open with my older Autocadd and the installer didn't work right and not only made it completely unable to uninstall that program but it also broke functions in Autocadd itself and NOTHING would fix it, I erased EVERYTHING from Autodesk off the computer, tried several version of Autocadd we had around and all where broken in the same way, so today I took the "nuclear option", backed up my files and TOTALLY wiped out the computer and reinstalled windows and all the apps and drivers and all that crap, this was a huge hit on time at the office that we really didn't have the time for with everything we need to get done right now, at the end of the day I had the computer back to a fully configured clean install with all my files restored and programs installed.

 

With all that explained my question is, is there a disc image Cloning software (like Norton Ghost, that I used MANY MANY years ago) where I can make a disc image backup to an external drive that I can restore using a Live CD (or flash drive) that has some way to NOT back up folders like My Documents, Desktop, Downloads and all that crap or will I need to clear all my "user files" off before the drive before I make a disc image? I maintain multiple separate backups for my user files so I don't want the disc image to waste space or time backing them up, I just want to have an disc image that I can restore to put the computer back to this exact state (of all programs and printers and network settings being installed and configured) by just loading up the live disc and overriding the internal drive of the PC with the disc image, it would be such a time saver in the future (plus we could effectively do yearly re-formats in next to no time at all versus all the loading crap up I had to do today).

I've used acronis true image for something similar so it should be good for this job. It is a paid program though