Thanks for taking the time to respond.

Concerning point 1 - we will be using only SSH clients, so I hope this mixed environment scenario does not apply.

I removed the "\n" but again, the script simply hangs. I think you could be right, that I am trying to implement a feature that is simply not supported on MSWin32. Excuse my ignorance, but does this mean I could run my script from a Solaris box for example, and then it *could* work...?