Windows 7: Upgrading Hard Drive and RAM, precautions?

I am upgrading my MacBook's RAM and hard drive (from 2GB to 4GB and from 250GB to 500GB respectively), what is the easiest (and preferably most reliable) way to reinstall Windows and to restore programs, settings etc. to my new hard drive?



I have backed my Windows partition up to Time Machine (on the Mac Partition) but I want to do the sensible thing and back it up in Windows as well; what is the best program/way to do this? If all else fails I'll just put my old hard disk back in and start again but I really don't want to waste time by doing that.

Thank you in advance for your help.

The Windows backup is good. You can create a full system image.

Backup Complete Computer - Create an Image Backup

To restore it, see here: System Image Recovery

Thanks for the help Jonathon_King, I just finished creating the system image.
I really value your opinion (and most other people's opinions on this forum).
Have a good day.