Recovery :: Backup Server Instance Including COMPLETE Configuration

There is a lot of documention concerning data(base) backups, but I could not find information about how to backup a complete SQL Server instance (data + configuration) or the SQL server configuration (= everything, that is not user payload). you always re-configure your system after restoring, especially because you will forget some settings?I found following things necessary to backup configuration:

server-wide:
security: login, roles, ...
server objectsserver properties (e.g. collation, connection or memory settings; see SSMS "Server - Properties")
per database
database settings (SSMS - database - properties)scheme

1. Is there anything missing?In case of a severe system crash I would like to be able to recover the system using a full system image of the virtual machine. However I just create these images after significant changes (e.g. Windows service pack).The SQL server should be backuped independently from these system images.

2. Even if I used SQL Server maintenance plan, choose "backup all databases" and additionally backup resources DB manually I think, that some configuration is still missing, right? Where are the security configuration and server properties saved? In my system database there are some tables, but there is very little content inside, so that the data from the views INFORMATION_SCHEMA* and sys.* obviously is not saved there.SQL Server system objects, such as sys.objects, are physically persisted in theResource database, but they logically appear in the sys schema of every database. URL....What does that mean: Are all DB/table schemes, logins, ... saved in resource DB?

3. Does a usual SQL Server full database backup also contain all settings concerning this database (database properties, logins, ...)?

4. Is there at least a way to backup ONLY the configuration (server-wide and database) without data? The only tool I could find is DACPAC, that exports a database's scheme and some other configuration, but e.g. the database properties  are not included: By default, the database created during the deployment will have the default settings from the CREATE DATABASE statement. The exception is that the database collation and compatibility level are set to the values from the source database. URL..