Yeah, I'm not convinced that $prog has anything to do with it. When tested under Win2000 Pro running Activestate's version of Perl 5.8.4, I could not duplicate the issue. Of course, since I have no idea what's in the batch file, I can't say for sure what the problem is.

But where $prog in test.pl reads:

my $prog = "c:\\program files\\bwb.bat"; # personal batch file for sundry tasks

test.pl yields no errors.

Where $prog in test.pl reads:

my $prog = "c:\\progra~1\\bwb.bat";

test.pl yields no errors

/renz.

(EDIT: Also, I am working with local admin privs.)