Imaging Win 8.1

A new 2015 Toshiba laptop with Win 8.1 acquired to day, four hours ago
- my faithful 2012 Toshiba is near on its knees after a bad experience with Kaspersky that has screwed 2 Win7 PCs

For about 2 years I have been subscribed to Imaging threads at sevenforums.com ... but never the time to try it.
- and a coward worried about stuffing it up.

Q1: Can a Win8.1 PC be imaged along the lines of Win 7 ... or is it a different process in Win8.1 ?
Q2: Am I right in assuming that Win8.1 can be downgraded to Win7 ?
Q3: Toshiba came with 2 year warranty ... this might influence on downgrading to Win7 and/or imaging Win8.1 ?

While the new Tosh is still in the box I assumed this would be the best time to create an image etc
- like step off on the right foot for easier maintenance in the longer term
- and I thought my grandkids were going to inherit my Win7 machines

I would appreciate any advice ... thank you

Before doing an imaging I'd use the built-in procedure the OEMs provide to create the factory restore discs that can be used to put the computer back to its as-shipped/as-received condition if the HDD fully crashes and the restore partition on it can't be used. There usually is a prompt during setup to create those discs or look for a Folder on the Start menu probably with the name of the brand or maybe one of the popular CD/DVD burning programs. Or you have have a choice of creating a USB Thumb/Flash drive instead of DVDs

Q1
1) As mentioned make the recovery DVDs/USB key as per the Toshiba Desktop Application which is Desktop Assist > Recovery Media Creator.
2) You can make an image in Windows 8.1 with Control Panel > View all items > File History > Link bottom left for 'System Image Backup'.
The File history function itself maybe of interest but it's only for certain very limited folders.
There are other Imaging Applications
.
Q2: I would not bother downgrading to Win 7, Toshiba may not supply Hardware drivers or support that. That you will have to look up for your specific model.
Q3: Don't see how making an image has anything to do with your warranty.