No, you misunderstand me. I know full well that MakeMaker works under Win32 (it would have been hard for me to write Win32API::File, for example, without it). I said that Win32 users will be unlikely to be able to use Inline.pm because:

1. Many of them won't have C compilers. Many of those will be effectively unable or unwilling to get one (for lack of money and expertise).
2. Many that do have C compilers would have to reconfigure MakeMaker to get it to work (unless the installs from ActiveState and others have added features to detect which C compiler you have installed where and reconfigure for you). And many of those will lack the expertise and persistance to be able to do that (last I checked there was no automated process for this).

Plus, even if you shelled out the big bucks for MS VC++ (the same compiler that ActiveState uses), unless you installed it to support command-line use (via setting of environment variables), it won't work with MakeMaker.

I think the Perl community would benefit from ActiveState switching from MS VC++ to a good, free compiler for building Perl. Even though I have to have MS VC++ installed for work, I'd certainly install a good, free C compiler to provide good support for a standard Win32/Perl environment. Perhaps this is unlikely since I believe ActiveState was founded by former Microsoft employees (or spun off from Microsoft).

        - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")