Maybe if you ask for an error message and die with it, it could help finding the problem:

ActivePerl-WinFaq12 tells us:
Why doesn't $! get set with the error message I am generating?
Error messages from Win32::OLE doesn't go to the $! variable, but can be accessed as Win32::OLE->LastError()

Best regards,
perl -le "s==*F=e=>y~\*martinF~stronat~=>s~[^\w]~~g=>chop,print"