Hi, I tried your example, but I get a memory error - Un handled Win32 exception error in perl.exe. I have previously read that the fork function in unreliable when being used on Win32 systems.
Threads, with which fork is emulated on Win32, have some problems in perl 5.6.1. I ran into the issue a little while ago, myself.
If you are able to upgrade to 5.8.0, I found it works much better in this regard. Though, since you apparently got it working using Win32::Process, it's not really necessary. :)