I recenly insalled XAMPP 1.4.3 along with the Perl add-on 1.4.2 on my Win2K box, and discovered several configuration issues with the packages.
1. The installer (.exe) version does not allow you to install to a top-level directory, e.g.: "D:\". It requires a directory -- BUT it always adds the xampp directory below that. This means, for instance, I can't install to D:/xampp, but only D:/something/xampp.
Either it should allow a top-level directory, or it should not add the subdirectory without the user's knowledge.
2. The README file says that mysql_installservice.bat is in the apache directory, when it is actually in the mysql directory.
In the perl add-on:
1. Config.pm is hardcoded with locations like c:/perl, and is not reconfigured to point to where xampp installs perl. Can a batch file be included that fixes this file, so packages that depend on it work?
2. All bat files either:
a) assume that perl has been added to the path (but this was not mentioned in the README file as a necessary step), or
b) in the case of ppminst.bat hardcodes a directory that is certain to be wrong, e.g.: c:/wampp2
I recommend that any hardcoded paths (like in ppminst.bat) be removed, and the directions be amended to suggest the user add <xampp>\perl\bin to their PATH.
3. ppm won't work because of the previous two issues. Even after fixing the hardcoded location, ppminst.bat fails because the ActiveState packages are not included.
Can ppm be made to work at all? If not, I would recommend removing it from the distribution (but I would prefer you added the necessary pieces to make it work!)
Hopefully these can be addressed in the next patch revision.