note spurperl I have a vague recollection of something that can be done by .bat files but not by a Perl script. I don't remember for sure but it has to do with environment variables. <p> IIRC you can set env vars in a .bat script that will persist after it exits, in the same command window. This is used, for instance, for setting up Visual Studio paths (the venerable vcvars32.bat script). I don't think this can be done in Perl ?! 668481 668481