The thing to remember with a Windows ASE installation is that the Windows ASE service is NOT started using the .bat file.
When the ASE is first created using the Windows server configuration utility, the initial start up parameters are written to both the .bat file and a Windows registry entry used to start the service
Changing parameters later in the .bat file will not change the services entry. This is why you need to start the ASE separately using the .bat file to recover the sa password, after shutting down the service.
Chris