If you could pick any EOL operating system to revive, what would it be?

[Ampera]

Had a curious thought and wanted to know what everybody here thought.

So the constraints of this post is that the operating system has to be considered EOL, meaning end of any mainstream or extended support by the original manufacturer, not counting any third party support systems. This can mean a specific version of DOS, and old version of Windows, Linux, OS, OS/X, etc.

This can also include operating systems like OS/2 that while under no support by it's developer (IBM), it does have support by Serenty Systems in the form of EComStation (you can choose OS/2 if you want, that's what I'm saying)

My personal choice would be the last of the stock NT line, Windows 2000. For me it was a decent extension of the close competitor NT 4. It was my favourite operating system, and probably the last fully decent product Microsoft ever released. I can start complaining about Windows starting with the Win9x line and the mainstream NT line, but Win2K is honestly a great system and it would be cool to see security patching for it, PAE support on Professional, and the permission of more than 2 computing cores (in the professional version).

EDIT: Thank you necroposters for reviving what might be actually my favourite topic I don't remember making. The question I suppose is, how would my decision change today?
Back in 2016 I wanted Windows 2000 back because I enjoyed using it when it still was supported, and wasn't happy with the modern Windows options. As of today, that is no longer really a problem, since I run Linux full time anyways, and as such I am not really bothered by the lack of exciting Windows experience that I'm not having and do not want to have anyways.

The issue is I'm not sure how I might change that. I've thought of a few smartalec answers like saying Android, because I used to love Android tablets, and they don't really do that a whole lot anymore, but that's not entirely true, and there's still Android phones, and and after using GNU on a tablet, I just want a nice GNU environment for a tablet.

If Windows 2000 would still get revived, I'd be happy in that enough to play around with it. The other issue is that I now have a fairly okay PC compatible collection, so if I want to use an old operating system, I have real hardware to play with it on. I'd also like Windows XP back, since I do also have fond memories of that. I'd actually want a lot of the old HTPC software like Windows Media Center, and other stuff to be updated, revived, and made usable again. The oldish way of doing HTPC (where a TV card was pretty much the core, and forcing your complicated setup on your family members was mandatory), is quite attractive to me, and I enjoyed tinkering with it when we still had a TV signal that meant anything to us.

(end edit)

Would love to see everybody's opinions as the current line of operating systems are pretty crap these days and I am pretty sure almost everybody here can agree with me.

Bonus points if your already using it on a regular basis. 

Scoresheet:

Windows 2K: 21

Windows XP: 27

Windows 95: 2

Windows 98: 1

Windows Vista: 1

OS/2: 5

CP/M: 3

OpenSolaris: 1 (illumos does exist I guess)

AmigaOS: 3 (used to be semi-alive in 2016, but now I guess is long dead)

IRIX: 2 (I'd actually love to see that too)

MacOS 9: 1

Xenix: 1

FLEX: 1

BASIC: 1

iRMX: 2

RSX-11: 3

RT-11: 1

TRSDOS: 1

VAX/VMS: 2

Concurrent CP/M: 1

BeOS: 3

SCO Unix: Why (1)

AOS: 1

NOS: 1

MS-DOS: 2

NetWare: 1

TurboDOS: 1

IBSYS: 1

<Honorable Mentions>

RISC OS: Still in development, as far as I know

GEOS: More of an operating environment than an operating system, though the distinction was rather basic.
 
Windows 10: I wish it was dead too, mrpackethead.

NOTE TO FUTURER ME: REPLY #218

[Halcyon]

Windows 2000

I'm with you on this one. Absolutely rock solid. My second pick would probably have to be Windows 95 OSR2.5 (also known as Windows 95c).

Bonus points if your already using it on a regular basis. 

I still have a Windows 2000 domain controller which I use to support my "vintage computer" collection. It has all sorts of old services running on it (including a TFTP server with Commodore 64 applications)

[digsys]

Windows XP3, I look after 40-50 stations. Excellent workhorses. IF I had an option, I'd splice bits of Win7 into it.

[Ampera]

You can just pay $$$$ to MS to buy Windows 10 SA Enterprise Edition, plus $7000/mo for a system admin that masters group policy. The combination will grant you all goodies in Windows NT without forced update or spyware or any hassle. A completely unlocked Windows 10 plus an expert in group policy can allow you to touch every setting in Windows.

7 grand a month plus however much for SAEE. I could tinker every single setting in a Linux environment for free!

So I have to pay upwards of 7 grand monthly for a decent operating system that DOESN'T try to piss me off. Wow.

[Ampera]

Windows XP3, I look after 40-50 stations. Excellent workhorses. IF I had an option, I'd splice bits of Win7 into it.

WinXP is not a BAD operating system, but it's just adding a whole load of uneeded rubbish, and once you get rid of all of that you just have Win2K

[Ampera]

So I have to pay upwards of 7 grand monthly for a decent operating system that DOESN'T try to piss me off. Wow.

If you have the time, you can have access to all enterprise settings in pro version if you are willing to tweak in registry.
There are some hard coded limits in kernel, such as max CPU, RAM, TCP connections, etc, but these are mostly differentiating pro and home versions.
Kernel used in pro and enterprise versions should be the same while all limitations just come from GUI tools.

Alright, I thought there were things that SAEE allowed me to do that registry stuff can't do in normal windows.

I still would rather stick with windows 7, the last useable windows operating system.

[Ampera]

Windows 2000

I'm with you on this one. Absolutely rock solid. My second pick would probably have to be Windows 95 OSR2.5 (also known as Windows 95c).

Bonus points if your already using it on a regular basis. 

I still have a Windows 2000 domain controller which I use to support my "vintage computer" collection. It has all sorts of old services running on it (including a TFTP server with Commodore 64 applications)

Man if I could still use it, I would use Win2K. It is a masterpiece, and that last great Windows operating system. It can be compared well to Linux based systems, and was before they tried to dick you 5 ways to 1.

[Berni]

I am joining the Win 2000 train.

It simply did its job and did it reliably. On top of it all it could run without problems on PCs considered old back in its day. A old 133MHz CPU with 64MB of RAM could run it as snappy as ever.

But looking at the current state of computing it would have to be Windows 7. It turned out to be just as reliable as Win2k. Sure its a bit of a resource hog compared to the previous OSes but even a cheap laptop tends to have 4GB of ram in it these days. But you do get all the modern things like better multi cpu support, practically unlimited ram size, better sleep mode handling, modern filesystems, RAM caching of files, fast indexed search, GPU rendered UI, automatic download of drivers etc... on top of it its hard to fault it for missing anything or forcing features on you..cough..8..cough 10.

[@rt]

Amiga OS!

[stj]

Amiga OS!

it's out there.
http://aros.sourceforge.net/
https://www.aeros-os.org/

[@rt]

Isn't that an independent replacement?
The original Commodore sources for 3.1 were leaked at one stage.

[george.b]

IRIX!

[tautech]

Started with Win 3.11, then 95, 98, 98SE,XP, Vista and currently using 7 while the wife's using 8.1 and I've got a dual boot with 7 and 8.1 but it 8.1 leaves me cold. 
Getting a MS staff copy of 10 soon to try but I'm pretty hesitant after all the bad press I hear about it, my IT mate reckons it's OK if you turn all the behind the scenes stuff off. 
I think overall so far I'm with digsys, XP with some 7 features. 

[Kirr]

Mac OS 9.

It was a beauty unlike anything Apple made since those days.

[technix]

I had some vague but fond memory of Xenix running on a 286 PC being used as a terminal to a HP minicomputer when I first learned how to use one. I wish we can bring back Xenix for 8086/80286 and backport features from FreeBSD to bring it up to speed.

[magetoo]

AmigaOS does not count since it is a non EOL operating system, and it's last release was 2 years ago.

Windows is still being developed, so by that logic most of the answers in this thread don't count either, including your own pick.

[Ampera]

AmigaOS does not count since it is a non EOL operating system, and it's last release was 2 years ago.

Windows is still being developed, so by that logic most of the answers in this thread don't count either, including your own pick.

You also have to take into consideration the fact that he just said AmigaOS.
It's still being developed as it is. If he said something like AmigaOS Workbench 1 or to the likes, then that would be acceptable.
Either way it's really only in good fun, just trying to keep it on track a bit.

[magetoo]

You shouldn't disqualify it in the top post just because someone further down wasn't specific enough.  Which one will people read first?

Anyway, there's lots of interesting and odd systems that would be interesting to see brought back, it's hard to come up with one that's "worthy".  I'll have to think about this...

[@rt]

AFAIK the original Commodore Amiga OS is not being developed for any original Amiga platform.
There are things out there for PPC, and independent replacements that I’m aware of.

Again, AFAIK Amiga OS 3.1 is the last real one.

[AndyC_772]

Risc OS. The only operating system I've ever actively enjoyed using, rather than being stuck with because it's what the applications I need to use require.

[crispy_tofu]

Voting for Windows XP because of the nostalgia factor

[StuUK]

IRIX!

Remember it well....

[Psi]

+1 for win2k   

[deephaven]

FLEX09
+++

[T3sl4co1l]

I see argument for Win2k over XP. I used XP more than 2k so I don't know all the differences.  I would vote for either.

Tim