... your $PathOnly is in double quotes, so the backslashes there are i
+nterpreted as escape sequences.
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SteveDC:   Ah, yes!

c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -le
"my $PathOnly = qq{c:\Dir1\Dir2\taint_so};
 print qq{>$PathOnly<};
"
Unrecognized escape \D passed through at -e line 1.
Unrecognized escape \D passed through at -e line 1.
>c:Dir1Dir2     aint_so<
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Don't know how you missed the warnings. You do have warnings enabled, right? Right?