water, thank for this meditation. I've been fighting with several modules that I've installed at home on Linux that work just fine, but fail miserably on my Windows box at work because of this very issue.

I'd just like to add on point though. If you do run into a module that you use on CPAN that fails because of this issue and you take the time to fix it, please take the time to put together a patch for the developer of the module and the public at large. Although it may be a pain to go through this extra step, your helping out the community at whole by making your work available.