Currently, there is an install program wrapper that runs natively under Windows.
This program makes all the necessary changes to the registry and such, but does not seem entirely complete.
This installation process will probably change some more between the time I write this and the time you read it, so I strongly recommend that you read all the information that comes with the distribution package before proceeding.

This specific installation uses a Windows2000 distribution of perl.
The steps should be very similar for WindowsXP users.

Once you have downloaded the latest version of perl for Win32 from the ActiveState Web site, read all of the information that comes with the distribution package before proceeding to step 2.
The installation process changes frequently, and these files will always have the current instructions.

Put the distribution file in a temporary directory (I keep a directory called c:\files\inst just for this purpose). Then run it in that directory. The installation program will then run and unpack the files in c:\perl\, unless you tell it otherwise. It will also make some modifications to your system registry, associating the .PL file extension with the program perl.exe.

First, reboot your computer, run a command shell (for example, cmd.exe), and then check to see if your path includes c:\perl\bin.
If the line c:\perl\bin is not in your path, you will need to add it. Open the file c:\winnt\system32\autoexec.nt in your favorite text editor (or use the DOS program edit) and add these two lines:

REM add perl to the path
PATH %path%;c:\perl\bin

Reboot (again)

When this is all completed, you are ready to write and run your first Perl script! So, in the next lesson we'll do just that.