What results do you get on vista from this version?

It makes no difference on Vista (apart from occurrences of Use of uninitialized value in undef operator ... :-)

However, on Windows 2000 (and probably XP, too) it has the desired effect. As long as the op does an undef($^E); before running the system command, I don't envisage any problem with your proposed solution on XP and Windows 2000.

Here's a copy'n'paste of what I get on Vista: 
C:\_32\pscrpt>perl try.pl
Use of uninitialized value in undef operator at try.pl line 4.
Successful command returning 1
![] ?[256 : 1] E[The specified image file did not contain a resource s
+ection]
Use of uninitialized value in undef operator at try.pl line 10.

Nonexistent command, attempted direct but fallback to via cmd
'c:/doesNotExists.exe' is not recognized as an internal or external co
+mmand,
operable program or batch file.
![No such file or directory] ?[256 : 1] E[There are no more files]
Use of uninitialized value in undef operator at try.pl line 16.

Nonexistent via cmd because 'shell chars'; sending stderr >null
![] ?[256 : 1] E[There are no more files]

[download]
I tried a couple of different builds of perl-5.8.8 on Vista (being sure to ammend the path to perl appropriately each time) and the output doesn't change.

Anyway, pjf did specify "XP".

Cheers,
Rob

In reply to Re^4: $? set to strange values on failure under Win32 by syphilis
in thread $? set to strange values on failure under Win32 by pjf

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