PHP shell commands (exec, passthru and system) won't execute

To all, I posted this question once before on the general PHP list; however, now that the list has been segmented into different groups, I thought I'd try once again. I am a PHP newbie and am having trouble getting PHP shell commands (exec, passthru and system) to execute. Even something as simple as <? system("dir c:\\"); ?> won't execute on a Webserver running NT Server 4.0 and IIS 4.0. The message that comes back is Warning: Unable to fork [dir c:\] in C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\mjg\test1.php on line 2 This very same script ran on a Linux Webserver. Permissions have been set very liberally so I don't think this is the issue. Other PHP scripts that do not contain shell commands do execute. One suggestion was to try either system("command /c dir c:\\"); or system("cmd /c dir c:\\"); Neither of these were successful and resulted in similar error. Does any one have any ideas? Thx in advance, mjg ( graz@multicastisp.com ; 914-462-9084 )