Windows 98 SE runs reliably on QEMU with a QCOW2 disk image provided that:
QCOW2 is the optimal format for this use case due to snapshot flexibility, space efficiency, and the ability to fork multiple environments from a single base installation. windows 98 qcow2 full
qemu-img create -f qcow2 -o preallocation=metadata win98.qcow2 2G Windows 98 SE runs reliably on QEMU with
Date: April 12, 2026
Subject: Emulation, Virtualization, Legacy OS Integration
Hypervisor: QEMU/KVM (Linux host)
Disk Format: QCOW2 (QEMU Copy-On-Write v2) QCOW2 is the optimal format for this use