Scripting

I have 12 apps that are being installed in sequence via a massive batch file I made. All of this is happening during the GPO startup event. I need to do this in this manner because half are MSI and the others are install sheild exes. I make it to the point where I need to perform a reboot before the process can continue. I place the line shutdown -r -f in my batch. These are windows XP SP3 devices. I get the error "device not ready". I looked all over and see references to remote shutdowns and this being an issue pre SP1. There is nothing mentioned about how to do this in SP3. I also tried using PSCEXEC and got the same results although PSEXEC placed output saying the process had begun although it never actually did restart the PC.

Has anyone had to string multiple MSIs and EXEs into a monster batch and restart in the middle? Is there another options besides SHUTDOWN to do this? I'm in a pinch here so any advice is definetly appreciated.

jimm