I tried to automate this process and I wrote the following script to do just that. But it did not work.

If the effect you're trying to achieve is to set an environment variable to make it available to a different script, then Win32 makes you jump through some hoops that Unix doesn't.

Here's how I approached this problem (from memory, so the details are at best mostly right): Script1 emits a batch (.bat or .cmd) file, which includes the SET commands to set environment variables, and the command to invoke script2.

  @ECHO OFF
  SET DEBUG=1
  perl script2.pl
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Script 1 then exec()'s the batch file, via   exec($batchfile); which sets up the environment and starts script2. It's an ugly hack, but it gets the job done.