Eitherway, I should be able to redirect the contents of the command from the screen to a file on disk. If I can do this using system, I am sure I can do it with Win32::Process, just cannot figure out how to do it. I cannot believe that Win32::Process would be lacking in that area. I am more convinces in my own ignorance that Win32's ignorance.

Here, look at this

use Win32::Process;
Win32::Process::Create($ProcessObj,
    'c:\winnt\system32\cmd.exe', 
    "/c echo foo>foo.txt",
    0,
    NORMAL_PRIORITY_CLASS,".")||warn "could not create process";
[download]

instead of echo foo put in the program you want to run. Win32::Process is doing what you ask of it - it is creating a process running "identify.exe". "indentify.exe" does not know how to redirect. You have to run "cmd.exe" and have it start "identify.exe" and redirect the output to a file. system transparently starts a shell (cmd.exe) and hands it the parameters, the first of which is the program it should run. Most people from a windows background don't understand that a command prompt is actually a program called "cmd.exe" (or "command.com" on dos/win9x)

Update:
Note: the name of your shell is probably available in $ENV{COMSPEC}

--

flounder

It is always sonething simple!!! Thanks so much... Thinking too much in one way. Now I just have to solve my other bugs :)

Starting Process and redirecting output works well, but another problem arises: I cannot kill the process started by cmd i.e. identify.exe. Only the cmd.exe is killed, identify.exe continues. Thanks for any help