I don't usually comment on windows specific problems, but this problem could exist in any computer environment as well.

I suspect that you have some 'daemon process' accessing the files for indexing purposes, and if you could find how the daemon locks the files, then duplicate that process. This would normally happen very fast, so I doubt a 'human' user is your problem.

Some possible solutions that might work:

• If your operation is not 24x7, then run this script off-shift in single user mode.
• Can you change the owner of the directory/files to be accessed only by your script
• Can you mount a separate drive and copy the directory. Obviously this drive needs to be restricted from your users.

This is a common problem in multi-user, multi-tasking operating systems, so there has to be a way to fix this. Perl is not the problem, but perl has tools to access your system, and invoke some operating specify solution.

Good Luck