I wrote this for unix:

sub phork {
  # we will call fork and return a pid.  The child will exec with all args 
  # and suppress the child's output (with /dev/null);
  my $pid;
  
  if ($pid = fork) {                    # fork the process;
    #parent
    return $pid;
  }else    
  {
    #child
    die "CANNOT FORK!!\n" unless defined $pid;
    open(STDOUT, "/dev/null");          # suppressing output  
    open(STDERR, "/dev/null");          # suppressing output
    {exec(@_);};                        # calls exec with current @_
    exit(1);                            # exec may maybe fail... maybe.      
  }  
}   

now, if you used the opens to open pipes, or to open files you want the output in, I'm thinking it should work in windows too.

I have a question, however, regarding how one would just disregard STDOUT and STDERR under windows using this function (there's no /dev/null of course).

Also, when you reap the forked process, you can then get the return value ($exit_value = $? >> 8;) if you don't want asynchronocity, then replace exec with system, and you can get the return value directly from that.

-Daniel