No need to dig through the registry .... 
#perl -w
my @cmd = qw{start foo.txt};
system(@cmd);

[download]
if you don't want to return to the perlprogram, use exec instead of system.

In reply to Re: Launching a data file in Win32 using the assciated application automatically by guha
in thread Launching a data file in Win32 using the assciated application automatically by tinypig

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