use Win32::Process;

Win32::Process::Create($ProcessObj,
		       "c:\\Perl\\bin\\perl.exe",
		       "perl -e \"print q(yr code here\n)\"",
		       1,  
		       NORMAL_PRIORITY_CLASS,
		       ".")

$a = $ProcessObj->Wait(1000);         # units = ms
$ProcessObj->Kill($some_exit_code);

print "[$a] ==> I *think* this will be zero if the " .
  " process terminated on its own before Wait() finished\n";