A fork of Qemu by Malte Kuhlmann now offers workable Itanium Merced emulation, capable of running Windows XP/2003. This breakthrough allows users to experience Windows XP ia64 build 2600. The process involves cross-compiling tools like Binutils 2.46.0 and GCC 15.3.0 on macOS, which presents its own set of challenges, including dependency management and resolving compilation errors, such as a duplicate `fdopen` define in zlib.

Setting up Qemu for Itanium requires cloning a specific branch and configuring it with appropriate flags. The installation of Windows XP itself on a virtual hard disk can be a multi-attempt process, with the author noting that previous forks had even more installation issues. Successful installation leads to the familiar XP graphical installer, marking a significant step in emulating this once-powerful but now largely obsolete architecture.

The author successfully compiled an Itanium cross-compiler using GCC 15.3.0 and then used it to build the Qemu system emulator. The process involved cloning the `merced` branch of the Qemu fork and configuring it for the Itanium architecture. Installation of Windows XP on the emulated hardware, specifically using the ISO `WXPIFPP_EN.ISO`, required several attempts but was ultimately successful, demonstrating the viability of this emulation setup.