Several trusted open-source projects provide pre-activated or evaluation images for virtual machines. Here are the safest sources (as of 2026):
qemu-system-i386 -m 1024 -hda windows-xp.qcow2 -cdrom windows_xp.iso -boot d -enable-kvm Windows Xp-qcow2 Download
QCOW2 () is the native storage format for the QEMU emulator. Unlike "raw" disk images that pre-allocate their full size (e.g., a 20GB file for a 20GB disk), QCOW2 files only grow as data is actually written. Windows Xp-qcow2 Download
Windows XP does not have drivers for modern virtual NICs (virtio-net or e1000e). Windows Xp-qcow2 Download