windiff.exe is a diff program that comes with Visual Studio. I'm seeing that when I start windiff via the system function in perl, that the windiff process starts, but the main window fails to open. Consider this short script called wd.pl: 
----------------------------------------
$cmd = "windiff @ARGV";
print "$cmd\n";
system("$cmd");
----------------------------------------

[download]
Here's what I see: 
> windiff.exe
   :brings up empty windiff window
> wd.pl
   :starts windiff process, but no window
> windiff.exe -?
   :brings up empty windiff window with a help dialog box
> wd.pl -?
   :brings up only the empty dialog box.

[download]
Any clues?

2002-10-31 Edit by Corion : Added CODE tags

In reply to system'ing a gui app by xafwodahs

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.