A method, system, and medium are provided for determining whether a program (e.g., a queue manager) is currently an active program in a failover computing environment. A failover environment includes pairs of programs capable of performing the same functions. One program in the pair is the primary program and the other is the backup program. Only one of the two programs is active at any given time. Embodiments of the present invention may determine whether a program is active by looking for a core configuration file in the file directory associated with the program. The program only has access to the core configuration file when the program is active. The activation status of a program may be communicated to other components that monitor the program so that the program's activity or lack of activity can be correctly interpreted.