The elephant that's been mentioned only implicitly is 'doze-style quoting.'

Sorry, this illustration (which presents two ways of working with Win32) is a bit on the long side but here goes, anyway...

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use 5.018;

# #1107536

my $program="D:\\GnuWin32\\bin\\ls.exe";
print "$program\n";
runit ($program);

sub runit 
{
  system ("$program");
  if ($? == -1) {
     print "failed to execute: $!\n";
  }
  say "\n\t DEBUG: reached the end of sub runit at Ln23";
  sleep 1;
}

say "\n Done with first sub, back in main. \n";

my $path = 'D:/GnuWin32/bin/';
my $pgm="ls.exe";
my $cmd ="$path" . "$pgm";

runit2 ($cmd);

sub runit2 
{
  say "\n\tEntering runit2\n";
  sleep 3;
  my ($cmd_in_sub) = @_;
  say "\n\t DEBUG: $cmd_in_sub\n";
  system ("$cmd_in_sub");
  if ($?) {
     print "failed to execute: $!\n";
  }
}

say "\n Done with second sub ";

[download]

Execution:

D:\>D:\_Perl_\PMonks\1107536NON-GUI.pl d:\_wo
D:\GnuWin32\bin\ls.exe

..                    TestFiles
Connexions           tbos.css
CPM-ZCPR              ViennaProtocol.txt
created_psp_files     WinSHAetc

         DEBUG: reached the end of sub runit at Ln23

 Done with first sub, back in main.


        Entering runit2


         DEBUG: D:/GnuWin32/bin/ls.exe

...                   TestFiles
Connexions           tbos.css
CPM-ZCPR              ViennaProtocol.txt
created_psp_files     WinSHAetc....

 Done with second sub

D:\>

[download]

M$Win mistreats (file and/or dir)_names_with_spaces unless the whole Path/Program_name match is double-quoted.

NB: This also works to invoke a Windows GUI program, such as Chrome or Beyond Compare.

Updated: by removing extraneous code; adding note

In reply to Re: 'C:\Program' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file. by ww
in thread 'C:\Program' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file. by prab2112

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