If you reimage from the external hard drive then your system will be exactly as it was when you made the backup image. No point in first doing a reinstall if you are just going to overwrite that with the backup image. And, yes, reimaging in that way not only restores the good stuff but any bad stuff as well.
If the Recovery partition is still usable, or you have or can get a set of Recovery DVDs (or USB flash drive), you can "restore" the system to the way it was when it was new.
A new install will result in a brand new installation of Windows, without any bloatware or utilities or whatever that may have been added by the OEM.
If the Recovery partition is still usable, or you have or can get a set of Recovery DVDs (or USB flash drive), you can "restore" the system to the way it was when it was new.
A new install will result in a brand new installation of Windows, without any bloatware or utilities or whatever that may have been added by the OEM.
