is there a way to get perl for windows 8

Yes. But this is not a Windows forum.

You might want to neighbor with your system admin type. You haven't provided many clues as to why this isn't working for you but I'm going out on a limb here and saying that it may have to do with your system being locked down. A lot of enterprises do that sort of thing.

I have both Active Perl and Cygwin/X (comes with Perl) installed on my work laptop. I hardly ever use Active Perl but I use the Perl that comes with Cygwin/X constantly. Something to consider. Not sure what your goal is in terms of installing Perl under Winbloze but....