: You can still find official images from reputable legacy archives like TechBench by WZT or Microsoft's Software Download page if you have a valid product key. Create the QCOW2 File to create a blank virtual disk: qemu-img create -f qcow2 "Windows7.qcow2" 40G Install the OS

Downloading a Windows 7 QCOW2 Image (2021) — Guide and Legal/Technical Considerations

Back in 2021, Microsoft still hosted “Windows 7 test images” for Edge compatibility testing via their now-defunct developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/ . Those images were in VHDX or VirtualBox formats, but could be converted to QCOW2 using qemu-img .

: Use the SDelete tool inside the Windows VM to fill unused space with zeroes.