Thanks for your response. Well, shoot. I tested this again on my Windows 7 machine, actually running from command line (before was running from the built in shell of Komodo Edit) and I do see that it works as expected. I apologize for the incorrect assessment. Tested against a Windows 2008 R2 machine, and saw the correct behavior as well. Windows 2012 R2 however, is still behaving abnormally. I tested on another Windows 2012 (not R2) and found the same problem. I'm glad this is the case, considering the 2012 machine is where we first noticed the problem, and this means we do not all of a sudden have a widespread problem in our code. However, it does not help me solve the problem. Which there is...somewhere.

The trouble is not with the threads terminating (agreed, the message I printed was misleading), but with the system command being run. Perl processes start up, but they do not terminate. Given that I'm executing a single print statement I would expect these processes to disappear rather quickly and not linger until I hit enter in the test script. Have any ideas or advice on how to debug this issue further?

C:\>perl -v

This is perl 5, version 18, subversion 2 (v5.18.2) built for MSWin32-x
+64-multi-thread
(with 1 registered patch, see perl -V for more detail)

Copyright 1987-2013, Larry Wall

Binary build 1801 [297964] provided by ActiveState http://www.ActiveSt
+ate.com
Built Feb 24 2014 11:06:47

Perl may be copied only under the terms of either the Artistic License
+ or the
GNU General Public License, which may be found in the Perl 5 source ki
+t.

Complete documentation for Perl, including FAQ lists, should be found 
+on
this system using "man perl" or "perldoc perl".  If you have access to
+ the
Internet, point your browser at http://www.perl.org/, the Perl Home Pa
+ge.


C:\>perl test.pl 1
### Running a perl script ###
0s : Thread 0 - > Creating threads
0s : Thread 1 - Created
0s : Thread 2 - Created
0s : Thread 3 - Created
1s : Thread 0 - All Threads created
1s : Thread 0 - > Waiting for input now. All system commands should fi
+nish without pressing enter
3s : Thread 2 - Starting 'perl -e "print \"hello world\""'
3s : Thread 3 - Starting 'perl -e "print \"hello world\""'
3s : Thread 1 - Starting 'perl -e "print \"hello world\""'

68s : Thread 0 - > Input received, all done
68s : Thread 1 - Finished the command: hello world
68s : Thread 2 - Finished the command: hello world
68s : Thread 3 - Finished the command: hello world
68s : Thread 0 - All Threads joined
[download]

Could you try adding the -l option to your perl one line and try it on the errant system(s).

---

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Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.

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In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.

Tried as you suggested, and there was no change at all :/

C:\>test.pl 1
### Running a perl script ###
0s : Thread 0 - > Creating threads
0s : Thread 1 - Created
0s : Thread 2 - Created
0s : Thread 3 - Created
1s : Thread 0 - All Threads created
1s : Thread 0 - > Waiting for input now. All threads should finish now
+ without pressing enter
3s : Thread 1 - Starting 'perl -le "print \"hello world\""'
3s : Thread 2 - Starting 'perl -le "print \"hello world\""'
3s : Thread 3 - Starting 'perl -le "print \"hello world\""'

17s : Thread 0 - > Input received, all done
17s : Thread 2 - Finished the command: hello world
17s : Thread 3 - Finished the command: hello world
17s : Thread 1 - Finished the command: hello world
17s : Thread 0 - All Threads joined
[download]