The second DHCP server comes up when first goes down. But when the first server comes back online, the second is supposed to go back down, isn't it?

Well, it doesn't. Any help would be appreciated very much.

Both servers running w2003 standard edition. First one is fully up-to-date. Second server does not yet have any service packs installed. Both servers are in the same subnet.

What messages do you get in the event viewer?

Well, nothing special. Information that the service starts and a warning when the DHCP on the other server is not functionalling [sic] and that the redundant server will start.

Nothing else, not about the other server coming back up or not.

There is one weird error saying that the service can only run on a windows server (it is) but that is two weeks ago. I guess i was restarting the machine at the time.

BTW: server is completely updated now and redundancy service reinstalled but no improvement on the DHCP issue

If the first DHCP-server is authorized by an AD, is the second server also authorized?

What languages are there on the servers?

Both servers are Windows 2003 SP2 standard edition, US english

And both are authorised in the AD

Run this command from the command prompt on your secondary server:

netsh dhcp server 10.1.1.20 show server

(Replace the IP witch the IP of your main server)

Run the command both when the main DHCP-service is up and when it is down. What output do you get?