Software Deployment

I've been asked to create a custom package for a non-standard remote management scenario that includes, amongst other things, the Altiris Recovery Agent ("ARA" from here on out.)

The ARA needs to be installed with specific parameters:
{path}\AgentSetup.exe /Server:"{server address};HTTPS;443" /Silent

When AgentSetup.exe is run, it unpacks a number of files including:

Altiris Client Recovery Agent.msi
ASlaunch.exe
ASlaunch.ini

ASlaunch.exe references the corresponding INI to fire off the MSI. Needless to say, there's multiple exit codes involved there, and the first one sends the main installer I created on to its next subroutine, finishing prematurely and quashing the reboot prompt that the ARA installation will generate. So a master MSI is of limited use it seems, and I'm considering options for chaining. (I've tried to figure out how to simulate passing the command line switches directly to the unpacked MSI, but it's taking too long and I'm over deadline - not all of the necessary variables are set as Public Properties, and there's a complex array of launch conditions, etc, that makes it difficult to trick.)

So really, I guess I just need to have all the sub-installations and scripts for the package run in the background while a progress dialog loops in the foreground, and have that dialog end after the ARA finishes (in this case, signaled by the creation of some shortcuts.) I'm not concerned with self-healing here - there's a script that does a thorough uninstall/cleanup; the user is limited to install/uninstall, and that works fine in this case.

Any ideas or comments appreciated.

TIA,
angusm