Occasionally I have this happen when trying to install Firefox extensions. The problem then usually is getting back a bad MIME type from the server: the browser thinks it's text, and it saves it as text, with line ends translated.

A solution that works, most of the time, is downloading the file in another way, i.e. not using the browser. wget that you can get for example in UnxUtils, will most likely do. If you have perl already, a simple LWP::Simple script will do too: 

perl -MLWP::Simple -e "print getstore('http://downloads.activestate.co
+m/.../ActivePerl-5.8.8.819-MSWin32-x64-267479.msi', 'ActivePerl-5.8.8
+.819-MSWin32-x86-267479.msi')"

[download]
which should print "200" and save the file on your filesystem, as binary. n.b. I blanked out the exact URL because ActiveState likes you to optionally enter your contact details before downloading, and I don't want them to be angry at me by bypassing that. Just proceed from http://www.activestate.com/store/activeperl/download to get the real URL.

Of course, to download perl this way, you have a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem, haven't you? :)

In reply to Re: Perl binary - Perl Installer Issue in windows by bart
in thread Perl binary - Perl Installer Issue in windows by greatshots

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