Thank you so much for your replies. I finally got it working with the Win32::Process. Here is what I came up with… Thanks again

my $tempSleepMilSec = ($tempSleepSec * 1000); # amt of time to wait
Win32::Process::Create($spiderProc, 
                        'k:\\...\\spider.exe', 
                        "", 
                        0, 
                        DETACHED_PROCESS,
                        ".") || die ("can't create process: $!");

if ($spiderProc->Wait($tempSleepMilSec)) {
    print ("finished fine");
} else {
    print ("too long - killing");
    my $tempKill = $spiderProc->Kill(0);
}
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