Whether getting an error or not is good is questionable, but the behavior is very consitant with unix behavior. For example "cp file1 file2" will overwrite "file2" if it already exists with nary a complaint. Windows, on the other hand, polices your renaming, copying, and removing of files with sometimes helpful and sometimes annoying messages. Maybe you could make a module called WindowsLike::File::Functions that imported a copy, rename, and unlink function that gave you errors when you try to mess with already existing files.