Some confusion here caused by incorrect or missing information on the ApacheFriends page containing the Perl Addon - though the readme and the introduction to the Perl Addon does mention that the pl* versions do not contain ActivePerl (No ActivePerl).
I am therefore 'assuming' that the Perl Addons with a
pl added to the name are only upgrades to the current major Perl Addon releases and that are installed over the top of a currently installed Perl Addon.
No where can I find verification of this and so it remains an assumption but the only clue I could find to this is in the actual archive file sizes, with the
pl* version archives being considerably smaller than the main version archive.
Perhaps the XAMPP developer responsible for the Perl Addon,
Kay Vogelgesang perhaps, could reply here, or at the very least make this assumption of mine, if indeed it is in fact an assumption, clear on the XAMPP For Windows web page - so that those downloading the Perl Addon know that they should first download from Sourceforge the major addon version before downloading and installing the
pl* addon upgrade...
...the end result of downloading just the
pl* addon is, as has been posted here, an incomplete and therefore limited and useless Perl instance.
In my case, upgrading or overwriting my very first Perl install has all I have ever done so there will always be a full Perl installation on my system, which explains why I could not understand there not being a ppm.bat file included in the latest perl addon download archive linked from the ApacheFriends web page.
So in conclusion and to clarify for other members who may be in confusion, down the latest major Perl Addon
Perl 5.10.0-2.2.9 (minus the pl bit) from here:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfile ... _id=113693
Then overwrite that main Perl Addon with the upgrade addon versions
Perl 5.10.0-2.2.9-pl1 from the above SourceForge link and or
Perl 5.10.0-2.2.9-pl2 from here:
http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-windows.html#644
Remember that when ever you install a major Perl Addon version or just an upgrade
pl* version that you must still follow the installation instruction, particularly the need to run the
setup_xampp.bat file twice.
Good luck with your Perl.