Of course $test1 doesn't match, because the parenthesis are mandatory in the regex.

So you have to make them optional. But that menas that the the first .* will suck up all of the regex, so you have to find a compromise. The one I chose below is to allow everything but digits and opening parenthesis in the first chunk:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
my @tests = ("Server list (Win2K/Win2003/XP) 6.26.5.1.5", "Server list
+ 6.26.5.1.5");

for (@tests){
    if (m/([^(\d]+) ((?:\([^)]+\))?) (.*)/x){
        print "$1|$2|$3\n"
    } else {
        print "No match for $_\n";
    }
}
__END__
Server list |(Win2K/Win2003/XP)| 6.26.5.1.5
Server list ||6.26.5.1.5
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