## Why oh why does it try to modify the input!?
my $uPath = encode( 'UTF-16LE', $_ = "\\\\?\\c:\\some\\path", 1 ); 

##</code><code>##

use Encode;

print encode( 'UTF-16LE', $_ = "\\\\?\\C:\\some\\path", 1 );;
\ \ ? \ C : \ s o m e \ p a t h

$uPath = encode( 'UTF-16LE', $_ = "\\\\?\\C:\\some\\path", 1 );;

print unpack 'H*', $uPath;;
5c005c003f005c0043003a005c0073006f006d0065005c007000610074006800

##</code><code>##

HANDLE FindFirstFileW( LPCTSTR lpFileName, LPWIN32_FIND_DATA lpFindFileData )

LPTCSTR => long pointer to (array of) TCHAR
TCHAR   => wchar_t