Well I've narrowed the problem to STDOUT. If I turn @echo off I've eliminated the problem. Which for this particular app is ok, but I'd sure like to see the problem eliminated completely and to get a better handle on filehandles/buffering.

Update:Aw frick'n frack'n bull riffin DOS frmbln grrr..

@echo off just fixed the Perl problem now the OS can't handle it... This is why I quit developing on DOS!!!!

coreolyn ... mumble mumble mumble.