How To Run Perl Scripts Under Win32

Unlike C++ or Visual Basic which build complied exe's,
Perl parses(reads) compiles and executes scripts (which are basically text files) on the fly.
There are advantages and disadvantages to this but we wont go into that here :0)

The first thing we need to do is download and install Perl itself,
Grab perl for Win32 from Activestate Here Note that its a Msi installer so Win 95/98 users,
if you have trouble running the install you can update to the latest service pack
or download and install Msi Part 1 Msi Part 2

Installing Perl:
Run the installer

During Install you be asked "Choose setup options"

Tick both Path and Extension, this will save you a lot of typing later :0)
The Environment Path option adds a couple of lines to your Autoexec.bat file.
(eg: SET PATH=C:\Perl\bin;C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND and SET PATH=C:\Perl\bin;%PATH%) Some common extensions for perl files are: .pl .cgi .pm

Ok you can now run Perl scripts, just copy the posted code and paste to a text file save with the .pl extension and double click it.
personally I don't do this with a text editor because it can sometimes screw up.(Read on to find out the best way to do this)
Common problem:
I double clicked the script a DOS window opens and closes so fast I cant see what happened, what's going on ?
This is usually an error of some kind, because the window closes so fast you don't get time to read the error message,
You can A:
Open a DOS window and change to the dir that contains the script, at the prompt type = perl filename.pl and the script will run this time the window will not close.( but it may minimize )
this will allow you to read the error.
B:
This is the way I do it download PerlBuilder
Perlbuilder is an Ide which makes using perl scripts a lot easier.

Copy and paste the script in to PerlBuilder click on run and any error message will be displayed at the bottom of the window.

The error displayed here is a include/use error, Perl is telling you it cant find a module it needs to run this script.
This is simple to fix :0)
Look at the top of the script

Note the lines
use Tk;
require Tk;
These lines tell perl to include Tk.pm when compiling this script you get the error when perl looks in its lib dir and cant find it.
Simple to fix :O)
Open a DOS window and type = ppm
PPM interactive shell will start
Now type = install Tk
confirm = y
and Tk will start to download and install.