if you’re working or just running Perl on Windows, drop everything, run, don’t walk, to StrawberryPerl. Adam Kennedy has not only made a real Perl for windows, he’s made a proper Perl . One where CPAN just plain works.
Even better, he’s made a Perl that you can use portably, from your USB stick, so you don’t even need to install Perl on your locked down computer.
To learn about his code, I’m building a FoswikiOnAStick distro based on his code, and then I hope to work out how to extend the concept to other platforms.