A Question for the Future

If I wanted to put up multiple copies of WP, and I wanted basically the same settings and stuff, but didn’t want to do fresh installs for each (meaning I’d have to configure and customize them each time I did), could I duplicate most of the files of the original WP, but be able to set up a new database with new username and password for it? I have a bunch of plugins I’d want to use, and I don’t want to have to edit and install each one for every copy of WP I might put up. Is there an easy way to do this, or is it just better to do a fresh install for each, and add each plugin/theme one by one? Thanks.