Last week my laptop crashed and while installing the new one I decided to update my perl versions. I mainly use the DBD::mysql and DBD::Oracle modules and although I'm confortable building them on Linux/Unix, like most people I use the Activestate binaries on windows.

However it turns out that Oracle licensing changes now prevent Activestate from distributing an Oracle binary, so I was forced to build them from source. It wasn't easy, but now both the Oracle and MySQL modules are working. Here's the procedure in case it helps anyone.

Install Pxperl

Firstly, you probably want to move to the pxperl windows binaries. Pxperl support the familiar CPAN system for updates. Get Pxperl at www.pxperl.com. The installation should be straight forward.

I installed into c:\tools\pxperl

Install MinGW

You'll need a C compiler capable of building native windows binaries. I used the MinGW system. You can't …