%SystemRoot% will always contain the DRIVE and LOCATION of where NT/2000/XP is installed, however I'm not sure about the IEXPRESS tool.
You could have NTLDR, BOOT.INI etc.. on any drive and your NT installation on any other drive as long as the boot process knows how to get to it. Interesting enough 2000 is smart enough to find the installation folder of 2000 and keep booting even with NTLDR, NTDETECT, and BOOT.INI being deleted. Not so with NT 4.0

When you say it doesn't work on your IMAGED systems, what exactly is not working?
I assume you have tried both variables, so then one would have to assume that something else is the fault besides the variable if you have tried both and it works on normal systems, but not IMAGED systems.