I've read your entire guide, and I still can't figure out how to get it to work, mostly due to my stupidity, i think.
I have Windows XP Home and really I'm just messing around with PERL. I'm trying to install the Data::Serializer module. As you suggested, I downloaded CYGWIN(even though I can't stand BASH shells). Previously, I had used a program called ActivePerl to run my perl scripts. Here's what I did:

Downloaded the module to desktop from CPAN
Opened it with WinZip, and extracted it to C:\Perl\lib
Opened CYGWIN, changed to the directory, used perl makefile.pl
It told me that it had successfully installed it
I went to run my script(C:\test.pl) using ActivePerl, not CYGWIN, and I get the same error as when I had not installed the module. Here is the error if it helps:

Can't locate Data/Serializer.pm in @INC (@INC contains: C:/Perl/lib C:/Perl/site/lib .) at C:\test.pl line 4.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at C:\test.pl line 4.

Thanks,
OxYgEn