vmware-cmd stop Does not Power off Win2k VM

GSX 3.1 Server install on RHEL 3 Upd 4 on PowerEdge 1850 with a Windows 2000 Server SP 0 VM. I am trying to use vmware-cmd stop to completely power off the VM but it does not appear to work. I have seached the forums and found suggestions like the gui.exitOnCLIHLT setting found at:

http://www.vmware.com/support/kb/enduser/std_adp.php?p_sid=FD19hZRh&p_lva=&p_faqid=1006&p_created=1056482881&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9ncmlkc29ydD0mcF9yb3dfY250PTI2OCZwX3NlYXJjaF90ZXh0PVdpbmRvd3MgMjAwMCBWTSBzYWZlIHRvIHBvd2VyIG9mZiZwX3NlYXJjaF90eXBlPTcmcF9wcm9kX2x2bDE9OSZwX3Byb2RfbHZsMj1_YW55fiZwX3NvcnRfYnk9ZGZsdCZwX3BhZ2U9MQ**&p_li=

but it did not work for me, I still got the same "It's now safe to turn off your computer" screen. How can I fully power off the virtual machine? The problem is I am trying to run this VM from a script but the execution of the script blocks on the PERL vmware-cmd  stop command

Other posts have seemed to hint at Win2k needing to recognize an APCI BIOS but the VMWare bios does not report anything regarding ACPI. Has anyone been able to get a Win2k VM to shutdown completely using the VMPERL API?

Mark