Your call to system needs to have parentheses for the die to work (aside from the fact that system returns "false" on success). 

system 'cmd.exe /c notepad.exe' || die 'no notepad';
# is the same as
system( 'cmd.exe /c notepad.exe' || die 'no notepad' );
# but you want
system( 'cmd.exe /c notepad.exe' ) && die 'no notepad';
# or you could do
system 'cmd.exe /c notepad.exe' and die 'no notepad';

[download]

You could also get a little more explicit about what you expect from system: 

0 == system 'cmd.exe /c notepad.exe'
    or die 'no notepad';

[download]

In reply to Re: Executing an application in Perl/CGI by kyle
in thread Executing an application in Perl/CGI by Anonymous Monk

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