You forgot to use single quotes on the $new_file. However, Windows is happy with forward slashes, so you don't have to worry about the escaping and single-quoting if you just use:

#!/usr/bin/perl
 
use File::Copy;

my $original_file = '//serv123/logs/log1.txt';
my $new_file = "C:/Documents and Settings/user/desktop/newfile.log";

copy($original_file, $new_file) or die "Error: $!";
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...roboticus

When your only tool is a hammer, all problems look like your thumb.