Whew! That's hard to read. But -- hoping I've read it correctly,

#!C:/perl/bin -w
use strict;

# regextiming.pl

use vars qw( $string $ms $ms2 );

$string = "fred and barney went bowling last night";

{
$ms = Win32::GetTickCount();

   if ( $string =~ /fred.+barney/) {
   } else {
      print "No match\n\n";
   }
print "This match used ",Win32::GetTickCount() - $ms, " ticks on a w2k
+ box\n\n";
}

# alt --OP expects this to be quicker

{
$ms2 = Win32::GetTickCount();

   if ( $string =~ /fred.+?barney/) {
   } else {
      print "No match via second refex\n\n";
      exit();
   }
print "The non-greedy match used ",Win32::GetTickCount() - $ms2, " tic
+ks on a w2k box.\n";
}
[download]

OUTPUT:
F:\_wo\pl_test>perl regextiming.pl
This match used 0 ticks on a w2k box

The non-greedy match used 0 ticks on a w2k box

Update:fixed spelling, grammar Prior discussion found with a casual search suggests that the identical timines times, to no_better_than one millisecond, is are or was were a limitation of w32. Opinion was divided as to whether Time::HiRes could do better.

So...

# regextiming2.pl

#!C:/perl/bin -w
use strict;
use Time::HiRes 'time';

# regextiming2.pl

use vars qw( $string $start $start2 $end $end2 );

$string = "fred and barney went bowling last night";

{
$start = time();

   if ( $string =~ /fred.+barney/) {
   } else {
      print "No match\n\n";
   }
$end = time(); 
print "This match used ",$end - $start, " as measured by Time::HiRes o
+n a w2k box\n\n";
}


{
$start2 = time();

   if ( $string =~ /fred.+barney/) {
   } else {
      print "No match\n\n";
   }
$end2 = time(); 
print "The second match used ",$end2 - $start2, " as measured by Time:
+:HiRes on a w2k box\n\n";
}
[download]

OUTPUT2:

F:\_wo\pl_test>perl regextiming2.pl
This match used 1.00135803222656e-005 as measured by Time::HiRes on a w2k box

The second match used 6.91413879394531e-006 as measured by Time::HiRes on a w2k box

QED ... I hope.