I had similar issues (on XP version up to SP1) when I installed Perl into a directory whose name contained spaces (i.e. c:\program files\whatever), a practice *not* recommended in release notes. Despite the installation going (apparently) properly to its end, ppm was not working at all, with symptoms like yours.

Two remedies, out of this:

1. install to c:\perl\ (or any other name of your choice, but *not* including spaces)

2. use an old-inherited DOS-trick of defining extended directory names in 8.3 notation (via the tilde, so that "c:\program files\whatever" becomes "c:\progra~1\whatever")

---

---

• Are you posting in the right place? Check out Where do I post X? to know for sure.
• Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags. Currently these include the following:

  <code> <a> <b> <big> <blockquote> <br /> <dd> <dl> <dt> <em> <font> <h1> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <hr /> <i> <li> <nbsp> <ol> <p> <small> <strike> <strong> <sub> <sup> <table> <td> <th> <tr> <tt> <u> <ul>

• Snippets of code should be wrapped in <code> tags not <pre> tags. In fact, <pre> tags should generally be avoided. If they must be used, extreme care should be taken to ensure that their contents do not have long lines (<70 chars), in order to prevent horizontal scrolling (and possible janitor intervention).
• Want more info? How to link or How to display code and escape characters are good places to start.