Yes - definitely.
After some experimentation - and with careful changes to path environment - checking that path has been reloaded prior to running perl - I have found:
v5.12.0 will work.
v5.12.3 won't work.
In both cases I am reasonably confident that there is only one perl.exe on the path at any one time.
In both cases 'system' does work correctly with the same parameters as given to 'exec'.
I am not saying there is a bug - just commenting on my experience in my installation.
Thanks,
Ross.