Looking at your script, I can only guess that your trying to open outlook so you can send mail. Is that correct? (Your use of the pipe leads me to believe this is so). The main issue I have with this approach is that since outlook is a GUI program (unless I'm missing something),you will never reach the close line of your script until someone quits the GUI - something that will tick of your web server admins. If you just want to create a webpage that will send mail to someone, take a look at Mail::Mailer.

-derby

update Are you sure this isn't working in your cgi-script? If your web server is a different machine than your local workstation, after you invoke the cgi-script, walk over to the server and see if outlook has "popped" up on it.