this is a bit cleaner. open(FH, "//server/path/to/file") or die $!; print while(<FH>); close (FH); for a bit of an explanation: Perl sees the \ as a meta escape in " strings. so "\\server\path\to\file" becomes "serverpathtofile" there are the solutions: double slashes: "\\\\server\\path\\to\\file" unix path symantics: "//server/path/to/file" this works because perl understands both even on NT ' quoted string '\\server\path\to\file' this works because single quoted strings ignore meta chars. Hope this helped. -wyn