#! /usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use IO::Socket;

my ( $local_host, $iaddr, $host, $port, $user, $paddr, $proto, $line, 
+$sock_handle );

if($ARGV[0])
{
   $user=$ARGV[0];
} else
{
   $user = getlogin;
}
###################end client.head
###################start Make generated
$local_host = "host_name";
$iaddr = 192.168.254.33;
$host = '192.168.254.33';
$port = 7797;

###################end Make generated
###################start client.tail

$|=1;

print "PLEASE do NOT close this window, simply minimize it.\n";
print "Thanks,\n\tDan, your friendly system administrator\n";

#this must be set to the ip address of the accounts server.
$paddr = sockaddr_in($port, $iaddr);

$proto = getprotobyname('tcp');

$sock_handle = IO::Socket::INET->new(Proto     => "tcp",
                                     PeerAddr  => $host,
                                     PeerPort  => $port)
               or die "can't connect to port $port on $host: $!";

$sock_handle->autoflush(1);

#send computer and username

print $sock_handle "$user\n";
print $sock_handle "$local_host\n";


#register signalhandler
$SIG{INT} = \&end;
#$SIG{TERM} = \

#now update the server once a while

while()
{
     #sleep for 10 minutes
     sleep(10*60);

     #notify the server that we are alive
     print $sock_handle "alive\n"
}

sub end
{
    my $signame = shift;
    print $sock_handle "quit\n";
    close $sock_handle || die "close: $!";
    exit(0);
}
[download]

Can you help?? :)

Edit: g0n - added code tags

If this is meant to be a long-running background script, perhaps you should implement it as a Windows service using Win32::Daemon. Once your app is registered with Windows as a Service, it will receive a ServiceStop() request during shutdown, which you then handle appropriately.

Good point. Thanks :)