PHP4.x and exec on WinNT 4 - does it work?

Hello - i am using php 4.0.1pl2 on a winNT 4 server with IIS4 i am having the HARDEST time trying to get the system/exec/passthru calls to work. they will execute - ( i have tested this by creating a file with the executed command) BUT it will not give me back the output. When ever i try to use the isapidll IIS module, i get "ERROR CANNOT FORK" so i figured out that if i use the CGI version i get somwhere, but still no output. any ideas? the code below reproduces the problem -- (perl is in the path) $command = "perl -e \"\$ct = crypt(\"$cleartext\", \"26\"); print \"\$ct\"\";"; $pass = exec($command); echo "pass is -$pass-"; -- thanks all!