I read in a few places that to make the Perl Tk GUI responsive when a system() call is made to open a file, that it required threads.

Code above will open Microsoft Word and the documentation document. While that happens, the Perl Tk GUI is unresponsive until I shut Microsoft Word/documentation.doc down

So I am just making sure that threads are the best way to deal with this situation. If there is an easier, better, or different way that you recommend to tackle this problem, please point me in that direction

May your wisdom guide me