I understand that there are various ways of accomplishing the end result but when you take into account the need for:

  • Ability for multiple (~ a few hundred) machines to update at same time (worst case scenario)
    many
  • Need to use minimum amount of WAN bandwidth
  • Flexibility

Then it does limit what you can use to acheive the desired result. On looking at SQL forums the best solutions anyone had were always using IIS to handle requests due to its ability to handle concurrent connections for superior to say MYSQL.

However, because I run the kix file as a scheduled task it runs as the system account which seems to have problems with running IE. If i run the script as a user it works fine. It could well be that the IE connection wizard is running or something stupid like that so must investigate.