Perl in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition

Installing Modules with ActiveState Perl

Prior to Perl 5.005, ActiveState’s Perl for Win32 did not support MakeMaker. If you are running Perl 5.004 (or earlier), you should upgrade because the absense of MakeMaker prevents you from installing and using most current Perl modules. While some modules can be installed manually, this is not suggested, since it’s likely that something will be forgotten, and the module won’t work correctly! You should follow all module documentation to determine which installation technique is the proper one, so that everything will be okay.

With 5.6 and later, you can use MakeMaker to install the modules, or you can use the Perl Package Manager that comes with ActivePerl.