Thanks for the links: I'll have a look...

I finally got it install just by skipping 4 spurious test errors. Here is the result of "nmake test":

nmake test
...
Test Summary Report
-------------------
../cpan/File-Temp/t/mktemp.t                                     (Wsta
+t: 6400 Tests: 5 Failed: 0)
  Non-zero exit status: 25
  Parse errors: Bad plan.  You planned 9 tests but ran 5.
../ext/File-Find/t/find.t                                        (Wsta
+t: 3328 Tests: 125 Failed: 0)
  Non-zero exit status: 13
  Parse errors: Bad plan.  You planned 137 tests but ran 125.
../ext/IPC-Open3/t/IPC-Open3.t                                   (Wsta
+t: 0 Tests: 45 Failed: 0)
  TODO passed:   25
../ext/XS-APItest/t/locale.t                                     (Wsta
+t: 2304 Tests: 2 Failed: 0)
  Non-zero exit status: 9
  Parse errors: No plan found in TAP output
Files=2666, Tests=1088273, 1731 wallclock secs (66.19 usr +  6.66 sys 
+= 72.84 CPU)
Result: FAIL
NMAKE : fatal error U1077: '.\perl.exe' : code retour '0x3'
Stop.
[download]

And the detail of each failed test:

----------------------------------------------------------------
C:\Users\Moi\Perl5\perl5-5.28.1>perl cpan/File-Temp/t/mktemp.t
1..9
ok 1
# MKSTEMP: FH is GLOB(0x1d056f5d218) File is C:\Users\Moi\AppData\Loca
+l\Temp\wowserdDJw fileno=3
ok 2
ok 3
ok 4 - woohoo
#
ok 5 # skip Skip test failed probably due to $TMPDIR being on NFS
Label not found for "last SKIP" at C:/Users/Moi/Perl5/perl5-5.28.1/lib
+/Test/More.pm line 1370, <$fh> line 1.
# Looks like your test exited with 25 just after 5.
----------------------------------------------------------------
C:\Users\Moi\Perl5\perl5-5.28.1>perl ext/File-Find/t/find.t
Can't locate Testing.pm in @INC (you may need to install the Testing m
+odule) (@INC contains: ./t/lib C:/Users/Moi/Perl5/perl5-5.28.1/lib) a
+t ext/File-Find/t/find.t line 41.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at ext/File-Find/t/find.t line 41.
----------------------------------------------------------------
C:\Users\Moi\Perl5\perl5-5.28.1>perl ext/IPC-Open3/t/IPC-Open3.t
...
not ok 24 - open3 of a non existent program fails with an exception in
+ the parent # TODO MSWin32 returns a pid and doesn't throw an excepti
+on
#   Failed (TODO) test 'open3 of a non existent program fails with an 
+exception in the parent'
#   at ext/IPC-Open3/t/IPC-Open3.t line 157.
#          got: ''
#     expected: anything else
...
----------------------------------------------------------------
C:\Users\Moi\Perl5\perl5-5.28.1>perl ext/XS-APItest/t/locale.t
Can't locate ../../t/test.pl at ext/XS-APItest/t/locale.t line 2.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at ext/XS-APItest/t/locale.t line 4.
[download]

It seems I can simply ignore those errors as two of them are related to missing test files (not in MANIFEST), one is about a coding error in a test and the last about some coding that should have been been done for Win32 but haven't been yet.

But the infamous DLL hell starts as soon as I want to add some XS modules to it as Windows knowns nothing about standard libs like libxml, libintl, libzlib, libiconv and so on...

But the infamous DLL hell starts as soon as I want to add some XS modules to it as Windows knowns nothing about standard libs like libxml, libintl, libzlib, libiconv and so on...

... which is why strawberry's portable zip comes so highly recommended: it includes the gcc toolchain appropriate for that version of perl, which does know about standard libs, and has those libraries in appropriate locations, so most XS modules "just install" without difficulty. Save yourself some pain: bundling portable strawberry, or having your install script just download the portable strawberry zip and unzipping it to the appropriate location, will be much simpler for you. :-)

Yes and no.

Yes, it looks really promising and seems to fit quite well what I want to achieve. But no, because I'm now desperately seeking a libintl.a for Straberry Perl to get Locale modules working... :-(

There's ALWAYS at least something going wrong, each time I try something.</>