Thanks for the replies guys - just to answer some of the questions

1) the permissions are ok - the user account i'm using is a local power user (it has install rights - had fun with that one!) - plus once you've logged on the script runs fine if run manually (running kix32 manually)

2) the %server% is just the server name - (i'm actually using the server name in there not the %server% variable

I'll switch back to using the run command again and see what happens - it seems to be that in the logon process it stops the command from executing - as when you run the command manually there is a distinct pause before it runs - so i was wondering if during the logon process it gets cutoff somehow - i might try and use a sleep statement to get it past some of the logon stage...

i'll post the results! :-)