Yes, a system image would: http://www.3dgameman.com/q-and-a/308/how-do-you-create-system-image

I recommend G4L (essentially, GHOST [General Hardware Oriented System Transfer] for Linux), which (using the Ultimate Boot CD, my tech bible on disc!) boots from disc to a Linux shell, and really doesn't care what you have on disc. If it is an x86 partition (FAT16/32, NTFS, EXT1/2/3, FreeBSD or OpenSolaris USF, Mac NExT UFS, others) it can be copied from drive to drive, or copied to a container file via any existing FTP server.

I actually use my home FreeNAS (customized FreeBSD) server with it's FTP app to back up systems that I work on, and the images that are produced have EVERYTHING on the disc, even deleted data. On a new machine, it is an excellent way to install a fresh Windows, customized properly, that can then be restored in case of accidental issues.

Windows Backup itself only backs up data files, not programs or the OS itself.

Check out http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ as everything on the disc is open source or GPL, and totally free.

can i restore a image on an other pc? will this also back up drivers?

Yes, that is what GHOST is most often used for, OS deployments to multiple machines.

Please remember that REGISTERED WINDOWS INSTALLS will freak out if loaded on new hardware and put you through the re-activation mess.