The '//ip-address/folder/file' format works fine for me, here. Just as with all backslashes in Windows filenames, Perl does the right thing. (Thank goodness FAT*/NTFS/etc. disallow '/'s in filenames.) I did get an error, however, if I didn't log in to the SAMBA server at my test IP address before running the script. So, that might be something to consider.