Boy do I feel silly! I have had to reformat my hard drive since the last time I downloaded the PDK. So I downloaded the latest version of the PDK (4.1) and the trial license key. Installation was a breeze!

Before I talk about PerlMSI, I thought that I should mention something that they didn't have in the PDK last time I tried it. That is VPM.

What is VPM? It stands for Visual Package Manager. It is a browser based application that allows you to verify, install, upgrade or remove packages. Two words - very cool! It's like CPAN on steroids! Okay, maybe not... but it's close.

I have not had time to thoroughly test out PerlMSI but I did get a chance to try out the Install Wizard that is installed in c:\perl\eg\PDK\PerlMSI\Install_Wizard. I had to edit both _CreateDB.bat and msiwiz.pl so that it would run on Windows 98. (I had to add perl in front of the filenames of the perl scripts.) Other than that, the example was great. Looking through the source for the Install Wizard, I can see how easy it will be to reuse this code.

PerlApp allows you to create stand-alone Perl applications. It has many command line options to configure it. PerlApp gives me an error about not being able to open perl56.dll. Permission error at /PerlApp/PerlApp/Util.pm line 247. But if I run it with the --xclude option all is well. (Just remember to include perl56.dll with your app if you use this option.) One final note about PerlApp, it's not just for Windows!

I do not foresee me using any of the other portions of the Perl Dev Kit but you might... What else comes with the PDK? PerlCOM - embed Perl interpreters in client applications. PerlCTRL - build ActiveX controls in Perl. PerlNET - .NET extensions. PerlSRV - convert your Perl apps into Windows services. Visual Debugger - um, a visual debugger? Could be. ;)

Update: Would I recommend the PDK? Yes. It does everything advertised although the price is a little high for anything but commercial usage. Would I recommend the PDK just for PerlMSI? No, these modules could very well be written by Just Another Perl Hacker. ;)

Good question! That is one of the things in the PDK that I'm looking forward to using. My boss has purchased the PDK for us. So I'll be playing with^W^Wtesting everything out fully once I have my activation code or whatever it's called.

My 21 day trial expired a long time ago. He payed for it back in May, but our Accounts Payable clerk messed up and didn't include all of the required information when she sent in the check. ActiveState just sent us back a letter with our check about a week ago asking what it was for. I got the letter from AS on Friday at lunch and got it back in the mail Friday afternoon. Hopefully it won't take so long to get a response this time.

And the moral of this story is... if it's important, take care of it personally.