in reply to System command under Windows 7

This is probably a stupid question, but... did you check the command "explorer <url>" from a command prompt?

I'm not sure whether "explorer" is a valid command, in W2K/XP I've always used "iexplore" and I don't know which is the "standard" one.

Rule One: "Do not act incautiously when confronting a little bald wrinkly smiling man."

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Re^2: System command under Windows 7
by marto (Cardinal) on Aug 10, 2010 at 10:04 UTC

    explorer http://perlmonks.org will open the url in Internet Explorer. IIRC start http://perlmonks.org will open the url in the users default browser, rather than force the use of Internet Explorer.

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Re^2: System command under Windows 7
by cdarke (Prior) on Aug 10, 2010 at 10:04 UTC
    "iexplore" does not appear to work on Windows 7.

    What else could it be? First, make sure you 
    use strict;
use warnings;

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    as others have said. We know you are not doing that because otherwise $url = would be my $url =. Second, how are you launching your script? Try it from cmd.exe if possible so you can see error messages. Failing that, if you can only launch from Windows Explorer for some reason, then on the last line on your script place:
    <STDIN>;

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    which will pause the script so you can see perl's console window (commonly, but incorrectly, called a "DOS box"). Hit <RETURN> to exit the script.
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