Paragon has twice had rounds of giving away their backup app [Hard Disk Manager 15 - Backup and Recovery Compact] that I'm aware of. Paragon [belatedly] gave away a copy of their Backup and Recovery 15 Home to people who attended one of their webinars. Folks regularly cry foul to some degree when a company gives away a special version of their software, rather than the currently sold product, so I thought some might be interested in the difference between the two... the Compact version is the newer release from January, 2016 -- the Home version is not -- but otherwise they appear [file for file] identical.
Installing Paragon's Backup & Recovery doesn't have a big impact on Windows. If you run the setup file it will prompt to install a couple of C/C++ runtimes from Microsoft -- If you copy the unpacked .msi file from the User Temp folder, & run it, you don't get those extra installations. Most people I think have more than enough copies, & do not need more bloat in the registry or the C:\ Windows\ WinSxS\ folder, but it's of course your option to try it that way or not. You can also expand the files out of the .msi file using something like Universal Extractor, avoiding the .msi installation routine completely, but you won't have the software's drivers -- you can try to install them manually from the software's uim folder if you wish. Running the .msi install routine you will get a approximately 230MB .msi file in C:\ Windows\ Installer\ .
[When you install a Paragon backup app drivers are added to be able to mount backup archives, much the same way you'd mount a ISO for a CD/DVD/BD disc. That may not be important to you, or you might get by writing your backup archives to a .vhd format virtual disk rather than Paragon's format, so it's quite possible you'll not want nor need those drivers installed.]
At any rate, installing Paragon's backup software has a bit less impact on Windows than any alternatives I've found & tested -- AOMEI & EaseUS & Macrium Reflect Free all have more, plus add a service that starts with Windows. AOMEI & EaseUS backup apps, when given away, are also subject to lose their activation -- rather than being stored on the disk &/or in the registry, Paragon asks for the serial number as a requirement to install, & that's the only time it's dealt with, not being stored or required afterward. I took another look at Acronis recently -- very, Very high impact on Windows, & a GUI I liked least of all.
Paragon, AOMEI, EaseUS, Macrium, & Acronis backup apps *should* all work with Windows 7 64 bit. Macrium Reflect will work with 10 32 or 64 bit, is I think the easiest to create a bootable USB stick with, & it will boot 32 bit Windows 10 UEFI or 64 bit Windows 10 UEFI systems, though you'll need one stick for 32 bit, & one for 64 bit. Paragon requires you to download & install the Windows AIK, 32 or 64 bit for a 32 bit or 64 bit bootable USB stick, so it's not as fast or easy, but the *January 2016* release will work, including booting to 32 bit UEFI Windows 10. Booting to that USB stick & backing up or restoring can take several times longer than using Macrium Reflect however. I did not test the Acronis USB sticks, but those created in AOMEI & EaseUS did not work.
Copying raw data from a hard drive partition to file archives, & the reverse restoration, are not rocket science, plus Windows VSS since Windows 7 just works. That means that any of the 5 apps should reliably back up whatever's on a hard disk, & restore that backup to the hard disk. As long as the backup archive files are accurate & in good shape [IOW no compatibility or hardware problems causing read/write errors], I can't imagine how any of them could conceivably cause any problems.
[I have seen people report problems, but rarely if ever do they provide the details needed to diagnose what went wrong. My guess would be the following had something to do with it...]
For it to work you have to be able to run that backup software, and when it comes to restoring a Windows backup, that means running another OS besides the one you're restoring; you either need more than one OS installed, or a bootable USB stick that works. And you can't have read errors when that software tries to read the data from the backup archive, which is unfortunately common with USB external drives.
Another option is when backup software writes basically the same code it would put on a USB stick, only on the hard drive, so after a restart the device boots to that. It may or may not work better or more reliably than booting to a USB stick. And another option is to connect the target drive [the one where you want to restore a backup] to another Windows device [e.g. with a USB dock] where you can run the backup software.