[PHP] Running external programs

[Beginning PHP Programmer]

Hi:
 
I´m using PHP4 on IIS 5 on Windows 2000 Server and 
it works fine. 
The Microsoft NNTP Service from IIS 5 can be 
managed from command shell with commands like this bellow:
 
cscript d:\\temp\\rgroup.vbs -t a -g 
new.group.01
And it works also fine in my system.
 
 
But, when I try to run a program from a simple PHP 
script like the following:
 
    $commandstring = 
"cscript d:\\temp\\rgroup.vbs -t a -g new.group.01";    
passthru($commandstring);?>
 
I get this Warning..
 
Warning: Unable to fork [cscript 
d:\temp\rgroup.vbs -t a -g new.group.01] in 
d:\inetpub\wwwroot\nntpadm\creategroup.php on line 3
 
What am I doing 
wrong?
 
Thanks in advance.
 
 

[PHP] Program execution functions doesn´t work in my system

[Beginning PHP Programmer]

Hi 
 
In the PHP manual there are some program execution 
functions like passthru(), exec() and system().
I´ve got PHP4 installed on IIS 5.0 on Windows 2000 
Server, and it works fine.
 
I tried with a very simple script like the 
following:
 
 $commandstring = 
"cmd"; 
passthru($commandstring);?>
 
But it doesn´t work. You can see this warning in 
the explorer:
 
Warning: Unable to fork [cmd] in 
d:\inetpub\wwwroot\nntpadm\creategroup.php on line 3
 
I need to run some external programs from a PHP 
script. 
How could I do that?
 
Thanks in advance.
Rub