The shell function can be used to execute another program from within your VB6 application. You can run bat, cmd, vbs, exe and other directly executable files like:
Code:
 dim proc as long
 proc = Shell("MyScript.vbs")
The ProcessID proc you get back can be used to wait until the shell execution has finished.

I'm not sure about Perl, though. But if you are able to run a Perl script by doubleclick from the desktop, you can use the code like I described.