you could try my shell object. yes i know it has the same name..come up with a better one and rename if you want to use both..

it is different from guenter's shell in a few ways:

1. works on windows, as well as linux.
2. always outputs a symbol, instead of who knows..
3. non-threaded. you can trust the perfect right to left execution order..for stuff like recursive dirsearching, sequence-dependent metafile reading etc.
4. always executes in a real shell (sh on linux, cmd on win (add a bash -c if you want it to run in a minGW/cygwin bash)) so stuff like || and < can be used..

http://whats-your.name/pd/extra/shell/