note Not_a_Number <p>I can't reproduce your issue on my Windows 7:</p> <code>D:\progs\perl>YA_ARGV_test.pl foo bar baz foo bar baz foo bar baz C:\>assoc .pl .pl=Perl C:\>ftype perl perl="C:\Perl\bin\perl.exe" "%1" %* </code> <p>Same perl, same Windows config (except that it's Windows 7 Professional).</p> <p><b>Update:</b> %PATHEXT% seems a red herring:</p> <c>C:\>echo %pathext% .COM;.EXE;.BAT;.CMD;.VBS;.VBE;.JS;.JSE;.WSF;.WSH;.MSC;.py;.pyw;.RB;.RBW</c> <p>Note the absence of <c>.PL</c>.</p> 959491 959491