What You are trying to use is a non-standard, Netscape specific externsion to the HTTP-protocol; IE can't (obviously) handle this adressing technique. What You shoud do is to set the target in the startform call

 
print $q->startform(-action=>"whatewer.cgi",
-TARGET=>"Top");
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Another way to do it is with javascript:

 
<script language=javascript type="text/javascript">
function speciallink(new) {
parent.frames["top"].document.location = new;
  } // -->
</script>
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Call it with

onClick="speciallink('Whatever.cgi')"
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(The script can be used on anything that supports the onClick event)

I hope this will help ; )

/Wonko