http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=939509


in reply to unlink fails to delete files with perculiar names

unlink reports the file deleted (and $no is set to 1 indicating one file deleted) - but in reality the file still exists.

That means a program still has the file open. The file is marked to be deleted and will be deleted as soon no program has the file open anymore. Windows doesn't have anonymous files like unix does.