Which Win32 OS are you talking about? I can't say for other OS's for sure, but Win2k (and I believe NT - or not, tye has informed me) has an EXIT command that you can put at the end of a batch file which will cause it to return a status-code.

In test.bat:

@rem test.bat
@exit 1
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In test.pl:

#!perl
print "The result is: ", system('test.bat'), "\n";
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test.pl will print (remember that the return status is only the high byte):

The result is: 256

bbfu
Seasons don't fear The Reaper.
Nor do the wind, the sun, and the rain.
We can be like they are.