I found that following vbscript that will do it but since I do not know vbscript very well, I am not sure how to convert this to a perl script. Any ideas?

Option Explicit

' Set constants
Const NET_FW_PROFILE_DOMAIN = 0
Const NET_FW_PROFILE_STANDARD = 1
' Scope
Const NET_FW_SCOPE_ALL = 0
' IP Version – ANY is the only allowable setting for now
Const NET_FW_IP_VERSION_ANY = 2
' Declare variables
Dim errornum
' Create the firewall manager object.
Dim fwMgr
Set fwMgr = CreateObject("HNetCfg.FwMgr")
' Get the current profile for the local firewall policy.
Dim profile
Set profile = fwMgr.LocalPolicy.CurrentProfile
Dim app
Set app = CreateObject("HNetCfg.FwAuthorizedApplication")
app.ProcessImageFileName = "c:\padawan.exe"
app.Name = "Padawan"
app.Scope = NET_FW_SCOPE_ALL
' Use either Scope or RemoteAddresses, but not both
'app.RemoteAddresses = "*"
app.IpVersion = NET_FW_IP_VERSION_ANY
app.Enabled = TRUE
' Use this line if you want to add the app, but disabled.
'app.Enabled = FALSE
On Error Resume Next
errornum = 0
profile.AuthorizedApplications.Add app
errornum = Err.Number
if errornum <> 0 then Wscript.Echo("Adding authorized application fail
+ed with: " & errornum)
[download]

I assume you are running Activestate Perl on that box. You should take a look at the Win32::OLE documentation, as well as the integrated OLE Browser. The following is untested, as I don't have a Windows box handy, but should get you started.
Read more... (2 kB)

--
Olivier

Olivier,

Thank you so much for your excellent example! You are a fine teacher.

Steve

This is how I ended up solving the problem..
Note: I try 5 times so that this script can be put in startup. Without the retry, the script may run before the firewall has initialized.

use strict;
my $count=0;
my $ok=0;
my $progname=shift || usage();
my $progexe=shift || usage();
while(1){
    $ok=&registerFirewall($progname,$progexe);
    last if $ok;
    last if $count>5;
    $count++;
    sleep(5);
    }
if(!$ok){die "Unable to register with windows firewall.\n";}
###############
sub usage{
    print "$0 Name PathToExe\n";
    print "\tRegisters program Name found at PathToExe with Windows Fi
+rewall\n";
    exit;
    }
###############
sub registerFirewall{
    my $name=shift || return "No Name";
    my $path=shift || return "No Path";
    return "$path does not exist" if !-s $path;
    my $cmd=qq|netsh firewall add allowedprogram "program=$path" "name
+=$name"|;
    #print "$cmd\n";
    my @tmp=`$cmd`;
    my $result=join('',@tmp);
    if($result=~/ok/is){return 1;}
    print "registerFirewall Error: $result\n";
    return 0;
    }
[download]


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