System call to GUI executable from perl

I am trying to run a system command to a GUI program from within a perl script WITHOUT waiting for the called program to complete. I have tried numerous combinations of `cmd start GUIcommandbeingcalled` without success–I can’t get the program to start without the perl script waiting for it to complete–which I don’t want to do–I just want to know that it got started successfully. I can run a “start GUICommandbeing called” just fine from a Windows CMD window but not from perl. I’ve tried system calls and backticks, which should be the same, but without success.

This should be easy, right!

Thanks for any help