Have a look at A Practical Guide to Compiling C based Modules under ActiveState using Microsoft C++ to get you started.

Download and use CamelPack. More discussion can be found in A no-fuss end-user-level distribution of Perl for Windows?. After you install it, you can just use the cpan command to download and install CPAN modules.

This is a re-hash of an old answer.

Option 1

You can install modules downloaded from CPAN onto ActiveState Perl without too many problems. You will need some extra bits though:

• Download the module you want using a web browser.
• You need to be able to unpack .tar.gz files, WinZip or 7Zipcan manage this - amongst others, and you can get command line tar and gnuzip for windows too - Cygwin is a good place for this.
• You also need a copy of make. ActiveState built Perl with Microsoft's tools so you will need Microsoft's make program, called "nmake" that you can get from here.
• If the module requires XS (c/c++ stuff) then you will need a copy of Visual C, however most do not, so you should be okay for most things.
• Basically once you have downloaded the file, unpack it and follow the instructions in the README file inside the module - remembering that it's nmake not make.

Option 2

Don't forget that there is the Perl Package Manager can use other archives than just the default ActiveState one.

Option 3

You can use the normal Perl CPAN module to automatically install modules for you directly onto Windows. If the module has c in it you will need a c compiler but CPAN will take care of it for you. You can either use Cygwin and the version of Perl in there, or buy Microsoft's Compiler and use it with the Active State version of Perl.

Normally you don't need to compile anything when making a Perl module it's done all for you.

• search.cpan.org
• node 147727.
• node 146987.
• node 146857 - a specific module question, but the same principle.

Well for simple modules without many dependencies or a needed C compiler just copy the *.pm files into your Perl\lib\whatever folder.