I think I've figured out what's going on with "my" script anyway. Kix32.exe on my 9x boxes is running from the %windir% so I can get by with using "\" 'go to root'.
Remember the issue is the differenece between %systemdrive% while shelling out or during script environment processing. I'm thinking once were shelled out were more under the unfluence of the the old DOS environment. ANd in script env. Kix maybe can handle ignoring a few things like %systemdrive%

Watch for word wrapping

Below won't work on 9x but will NT(I understand why it works in NT)I don't think
the old DOS environment likes %systemdrive% in fact if you do a set command from the prompt you will not see %systemdrive% set. But NT will.

shell "%comspec% /e:1024 /c copy @LDRIVE\ntsdprim.exe %SYSTEMDRIVE%"

while shelling for 9X it has to be like below

shell "%comspec% /c copy \\kixiistestsvr\netlogon\9xsdprim.exe \"

But below works in the script run-time, however I believe what is happening is the
%SYSTEMDRIVE% is being just being ignored by KIX and the following "\" is working.

IF exist ("%SYSTEMDRIVE%\9xsdprim.exe")

Hope I didn't confuse this issue more than it already was. Thanks for previous replies!

More comments guys and gals ?!?!?

Shawn