Author here...As I said in response to the bug report, I don't consider it a bug. But it is true that the "make test" will fail badly if it doesn't see a hardware port. In 1999, when the test setup was initially designed, almost all systems DID have a COM1. And for the few exceptions, I allowed overriding the port from the command line. Since, at that time, very little installed cleanly from CPAN on Windows, I considered it adequate. The command line installer did not even need "make".

I run both 32 and 64 bit perls in parallel on my 64-bit windows box. I also have received some suggestions and patches to address actually running in a 64 bit perl. But I have been short of TUITs. I agree, the next update should include a no-hardware-detected default fallback. I'll make sure that is on the list and it should fix the CPAN concern, too.

-bill