>I work with large tables clear up to the 2Gb limit, dialed in to client sites and running processes remotely, including bulk processes such as pack, reindex, copy etc. These take a long time on big files/slow networks and I need a visual progress indicator, not just for me to monitor the status, but to indicate to onsite staff that there is an active process currently running!!

Simple, don't use PACK, REINDEX or COPY. Write your own functions to do them record by record so you can incremenent a progress bar in between. Considering the size of the day, you may also want to allow for a keyboard or mouse escape sequence.