Yes I see why this method is a pain in the ########.. but unfortunatly I think i will need to be stuck with it.

So I changed all the other absolute paths in my 2 configure.php files on the secure server. I am still getting the same error tho.

Do I need to have the /zc_install dir on the secure side? I ask because I initally didn't upload it because you remove it after installation, but the error I was getting was because it couldn't find that dir at all. Should I remove the /zc_install dir from the secure side?