Caveat: I'm not a windows or an activestate person, and I don't entirely understand what you're trying to accomplish here.

But... why are you wrapping $cstring into an array, and then calling the array, if the array only has one member? What if you just:

      $cstring = "$vc6cmd $project $cargs";
      $status = system("$cstring 1>>$sout 2>&1");

      $cstring = "$bldcheck vc $sout";
      $self->trace("--- $cstring\n");
      $status = system("$cstring 1>>$logfile 2>&1");
[download]

Is there any reason that wouldn't work too? It's clearer.

If I were you I would have it print out exactly what is in $cstring, $logfile, et cetera, and try to run the command by hand. That might clear things up slightly? Also, keep in mind that it could be the previous line ($self->trace()) that is causing the real error.

Hope this is marginally useful...

~evan