After switching from perl 5.8.0 build 806 to perl 5.8.2 build 808 I found that the ability to invoke Win32 wide api calls was silently removed (-C command line switch or ${^WIDE_SYSTEM_CALLS}=1).
This change however removes not only the possibility to use "UNICODE" names but also access to files and folders with names longer than 255 bytes.
Maybe somebody knows: a.) about a way to invoke the wide API interface b.) plans about the future of the usage of wide API calls in perl for windows (32/64) > 5.8.2. and c.) who is the maintainer of the win32 perl (ActivePerl) port of the I/O subsystem.
Thanks