Since the server always is and appears empty: here are a some quick fixes to help players find each other to play some games:

Make everyone land to the same channel when they connect to the game no matter their language so they see when people are online. All in the same place!

Add a /games command to see at least the number of games being played if not just giving a list of the games being hosted at the time with their names the number of players in them and the full status.

add a /users command to see how many users are connected on the server in how many games.

It would be cool to have a web page to check who is playing before we launch the game too.

And also you could take some inspiration from what private fan-made servers that have done this before came up with.
But this time in an official and legal manner:
replays saving and sharing.
color-blind mode.
apm display.
hotkeys changing.
windowable ddraw.dll (hell there is an opensource version of this that supports improved glsl shaders google cnc-ddraw.dll)
protect game from hacks.

And many more things that will help the retail version at least be equal to what fans have made themselves over the years for the game when Blizzard had left the game to die and GOG had not re-released it yet.

And maybe we can even dream further:
random matchmaking / queueing / quickplay options

How else would you explain private illegal servers have over 80 players playing the game everyday and GOG classic has litterally 0 players online right now for the exact same game, even though so many were ready to spend their cash all over again to play this gem legally again.

The multiplayer is what always made that game so unique and great, unlike later titles of the same franchise the solo part of the game was mediocre at best with a grindy campaign and awfully stupid AI and a very unoriginal story even for the time. The game only really shines in multiplayer but people wont ever experience that legally if improvements are never done to it.

This game could have crazy amounts of players playing and streaming it everyday please be the Dad Blizzard never was to this wonderful game...

I really enjoyed the campaign. I played a few local multiplayer games (with a friend) in the 90s, and it's unlikely that I'll do I'll ever do that again. Playing the campaign again: maybe, who knows.
Playing online with/against strangers is something I'll never never ever do.

Not saying you cant enjoy the campaign you can, just saying the strategical value of missions in it is terrible comparred to the depth multiplayer really brings to the table for that game. Not having it done right really doesn't do the game justice.

Also there is nothing wrong in saying that in comparrison with other titles of the time (Dune C&C etc...) War2 story and campaign is pretty simple and straight forward good and evil kind of deal, and nothing like warcraft 3 later came up with in complexity or even direction.

War2 was one of the first games of the time to come with a free easy to setup multiplayer experience and it really made it shine, Battle.net edition was a big seller for the game and for very good reasons.
This game's multiplayer is completely unique even to this day. A pure grid based, chess like, unforgiving game in real time.
There is just no game to this day that has such a way to deal with space at all.
I can understand not everyone may like tactics and strategy or multiplayer aspect of it. But this game is not just a solo player game and is not advertised as such either, so it should be done right on that part too. For people that do like and understand it and also want to be able to play or stream it the legal way...

There is no reasons private illegal fan-made servers should be able to do it better with less means than the retail version is there?

I am glad you liked the campaign though! I like it too for nostalgic reasons, but I do like multiplayer even more, and at the time it is almost impossible to play that side of the game legally for said reasons, and I feel it is a real shame...