I suspect the problem is that win(95|98|ME) use command.com, whereas win(NT|XP) use cmd.exe, which has better support for many things. Try placing a copy on the win98 box, and chaning $ENV{PERL5SHELL} to get perl to use it instead. (And read perldoc perlwin32. I'd link to it, but for some reason, perldoc.com's copy it empty.)