qcow2 supports zlib compression , which can significantly reduce the disk footprint of your Windows XP image. This is particularly useful for archiving old software environments you only need to access occasionally. Performance Optimization for XP
Once the OS is installed, you’ll need a few extras to make it usable in 2026: windows xpqcow2
qemu-system-i386 -hda windows_xp.qcow2 -cdrom /path/to/windows_xp.iso -m 2048 qcow2 supports zlib compression , which can significantly