But $? is the same thing as just reading the return value yourself, right? At any rate, $? on my Win32 system doesn't show anything except "0", no matter what is in the system call:

$rv = system("uname");
print "Returned a $rv and \$? is $?\n";
$rv = system("ver");
print "Returned a $rv and \$? is $?\n";
[download]

Unix produces:

SunOS
Returned a 0 and $? is 0
Returned a 65280 and $? is 65280

Windoze produces:

Bad command or file name
Returned a 0 and $? is 0

Windows 98 [Version 4.10.1998]

Returned a 0 and $? is 0