Could it be the nature of the test?

Running your code seems to me to show that -- as asserted with respect to the use of forward slashes in windows -- M$ sees the two as equivalent (or "equal?") while perl does not. ^*1

^*1UPDATE! Sloppy language on my part. Insert "paths" before the closing double-hyphen. See, especially, eyepopslikeamosquito's at this node.

Formatting in the code, the end block, etc. solely to make my reading of it easier.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
#1176161

my $x = qq{Z:\/Partners\/Wilsons\/2push_test};
my $y =   'Z:\Partners\Wilsons\2push_test';

print qq{'$x'  '$y'};
print "\n\t";

END {
      print "Not equivalent! \n" unless $x eq $y;
}

END {                        # multiple end blocks are executed in rev
+erse order
    if ($!) { 
         print "Error is $!, \n";
    } else {
         print "No (perl) error found.\n\t Done with the second END bl
+ock\n\n";
    }
}

exit();
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C:\Users\wheelerw>D:\_Perl_\PMonks\1176161.pl
'Z:/Partners/Wilsons/2push_test'  'Z:\Partners\Wilson
        No (perl) error found.
         Done with the second END block

Not equivalent!
[download]