Given the discussion which this topic has generated you might also (or instead) like to read A guide to installing modules for Win32 (2022 Edition) - your insights as someone who may be new to all this might help to improve that document as well. HTH.

(Edited to link to the newly-published tutorial instead of the RFC)

Another angle I was thinking about, to solving this problem, was installing perl from scratch, on one of my "non-work" PCs as an experiment. However, it looks like there are two options to install Perl - Active State and Strawberry. I have windows at home - well, windows home & work. So, if my goal is to easily install modules - like the DBD JDBC, it seems like Active State is the way to go if you have windows. My home PC would have the a more recent version of Perl - with active state, would it be as simple as double clicking on the PPM batch, doing a search on the DBD JDBC module, clicking on install, and installing the module? I know with other modules in the past - that is all that I had to do. When I took this approach, on my work computer(which is using an older version of Perl) - I didn't see the DBD::OJBC module.

with active state, would it be as simple as double clicking on the PPM batch, doing a search on the DBD JDBC module, clicking on install, and installing the module?

No - they don't use PPM any more.
I gather you follow some procedure whereby you request of ActiveState that they provide you with the module you want, and they oblige if they can.
Update: see https://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=11145868

With StrawberryPerl you would just run:

cpan -I DBD::JDBC
[download]

On my StrawberryPerl-5.32.1 that firstly installs the prerequisite Convert::BER.
But DBD::JDBC fails some tests, so the install is aborted.
Those tests apparently fail because java.exe cannot be found:

t/00-load.t ..... 1/? # Testing DBD::JDBC 0.72, Perl 5.032001, C:\_64\
+strawberry
-5.32.1-PDL\perl\bin\perl.exe
t/00-load.t ..... ok
t/01_env.t ...... ok
t/02_connect.t .. 1/5 Cannot find java.exe in the following directorie
+s:
    C:\_64\strawberry-5.32.1-PDL\perl\site\bin
    C:\_64\strawberry-5.32.1-PDL\perl\bin
    C:\_64\strawberry-5.32.1-PDL\c\bin
    C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Windows Live
    C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Windows Live
    C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\PhysX\Common
    C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\iCLS Client\
    C:\Program Files\Intel\iCLS Client\
    C:\Windows\system32
    C:\Windows
    C:\Windows\System32\Wbem
    C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\
    C:\Program Files\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\DAL
    C:\Program Files\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\IPT
    C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components
+\DAL
    C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components
+\IPT
    C:\batch
    C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Live\Shared
    C:\Program Files\dotnet\
Terminating.

#   Failed test 'server started'
#   at t/02_connect.t line 25.
# Server failed to start; remaining tests will fail
# Looks like you failed 1 test of 5.
t/02_connect.t .. Dubious, test returned 1 (wstat 256, 0x100)
Failed 1/5 subtests
        (less 3 skipped subtests: 1 okay)
t/03_hsqldb.t ... Cannot find java.exe in the following directories:
    C:\_64\strawberry-5.32.1-PDL\perl\site\bin
    C:\_64\strawberry-5.32.1-PDL\perl\bin
    C:\_64\strawberry-5.32.1-PDL\c\bin
    C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Windows Live
    C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Windows Live
    C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\PhysX\Common
    C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\iCLS Client\
    C:\Program Files\Intel\iCLS Client\
    C:\Windows\system32
    C:\Windows
    C:\Windows\System32\Wbem
    C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\
    C:\Program Files\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\DAL
    C:\Program Files\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\IPT
    C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components
+\DAL
    C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components
+\IPT
    C:\batch
    C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Live\Shared
    C:\Program Files\dotnet\
Terminating.
t/03_hsqldb.t ... 1/22
#   Failed test 'server started'
#   at t/03_hsqldb.t line 24.
# Looks like you failed 1 test of 22.
t/03_hsqldb.t ... Dubious, test returned 1 (wstat 256, 0x100)
Failed 1/22 subtests
        (less 21 skipped subtests: 0 okay)
t/basis.t ....... skipped: BASIS URL not defined
t/oracle.t ...... skipped: Oracle URL not defined

Test Summary Report
-------------------
t/02_connect.t (Wstat: 256 Tests: 5 Failed: 1)
  Failed test:  2
  Non-zero exit status: 1
t/03_hsqldb.t (Wstat: 256 Tests: 22 Failed: 1)
  Failed test:  1
  Non-zero exit status: 1
Files=6, Tests=33,  1 wallclock secs ( 0.00 usr +  0.01 sys =  0.01 CP
+U)
Result: FAIL
Failed 2/6 test programs. 2/33 subtests failed.
make.EXE: *** [Makefile:855: test_dynamic] Error 255
  VIZDOM/DBD-JDBC-0.72.tar.gz
  C:\_32\make\bin\make.EXE test -- NOT OK
//hint// to see the cpan-testers results for installing this module, t
+ry:
  reports VIZDOM/DBD-JDBC-0.72.tar.gz
[download]

However, if I decide that I'm not concerned about those failures I can install DBD::JDBC by instead running:

cpan -fi DBD::JDBC
[download]

The tests still fail, of course, but the module is installed anyway.

I expect that ActiveState would experience the very same test failures with their building of DBD::JDBC - unless, of course, they have a java.exe in one of the locations that is searched.
I don't know how they would respond to that.

Cheers,
Rob