diff --git a/cpan/ExtUtils-PL2Bat/t/make_executable.t b/cpan/ExtUtils-PL2Bat/t/make_executable.t
index fb4ba6adb02a..6e7beb218348 100644
--- a/cpan/ExtUtils-PL2Bat/t/make_executable.t
+++ b/cpan/ExtUtils-PL2Bat/t/make_executable.t
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ use Test::More;
 use ExtUtils::PL2Bat;
 use Cwd qw/cwd/;
 
-plan($^O eq 'MSWin32' ? (tests => 7) : skip_all => 'Only usable on Windows');
+plan($^O eq 'MSWin32' ? (tests => 8) : skip_all => 'Only usable on Windows');
 
 my $filename = 'test_exec';
 my @files;
@@ -19,9 +19,10 @@ close $out;
 
 pl2bat(in => $filename);
 
+my $path_with_cwd = construct_test_PATH();
+
 foreach my $i (42, 51, 0) {
-	my $cwd = cwd;
-	local $ENV{PATH} = join $Config{path_sep}, $cwd, $ENV{PATH};
+	local $ENV{PATH} = $path_with_cwd;
 	my $ret = system $filename, $i;
 	is $ret & 0xff, 0, 'test_exec executed successfully';
 	is $ret >> 8, $i, "test_exec $i return value ok";
@@ -31,3 +32,29 @@ push @files, grep { -f } map { $filename.$_ } split / $Config{path_sep} /x, $ENV
 is scalar(@files), 1, "Executable file exists";
 
 unlink $filename, @files;
+
+# the test needs CWD in PATH to check the created .bat files, but under win2k
+# PATH must not be too long. so to keep any win2k smokers happy, we construct
+# a new PATH that contains the dirs which hold cmd.exe, perl.exe, and CWD
+
+sub construct_test_PATH {
+	my $perl_path = $^X;
+	my $cmd_path = $ENV{ComSpec} ||  `where cmd`; # where doesn't seem to work on all windows versions
+	$_ =~ s/[\\\/][^\\\/]+$// for $perl_path, $cmd_path; # strip executable names
+
+	my @path_fallbacks = grep /\Q$ENV{SystemRoot}\E|system32|winnt|windows/i, split $Config{path_sep}, $ENV{PATH};
+
+	my $path_with_cwd = join $Config{path_sep}, @path_fallbacks, $cmd_path, $perl_path, cwd();
+
+	my ($perl) = ( $^X =~ /[\\\/]([^\\]+)$/ ); # in case the perl executable name differs
+	note "using perl executable name: $perl";
+
+	local $ENV{PATH} = $path_with_cwd;
+	my $test_out = `$perl -e 1 2>&1`;
+	is $test_out, "", "perl execution with temp path works"
+		or diag "make_executable.t tmp path: $path_with_cwd";
+	diag "make_executable.t PATH likely did not contain cmd.exe"
+		if !defined $test_out;
+
+	return $path_with_cwd;
+}