I've figured out how to get things working with the winpy32 module. This eliminates my vbs backdoor. Listing is working, now on to the rest.
Refactored the entire script to use win32com instead of my backdoor script method. pywin isn't to bad when you get used to it. *shiver* I got in a bit of a harry potter mood and made a quidditch game of the script. What fun is programming with out a little humor every now and then?