perl -le "system('start /min cmd.exe')" # starts a minimized command window, just as expected # This is perl, v5.8.5 built for MSWin32-x86-multi-thread #### my $cmd = "..."; # this is the important part you have to supply print "Trying to launch '$cmd'\n"; system($cmd) == 0 or warn "Couldn't launch '$cmd': $!/$?";