I appreciate that struggling is all part of the learning process, but ever since I was shown Strawberry Perl (by another monk), I've not used anything else on Windoze - it's an effortless installation and life's too short to be wrestling, seemingly endlessly, with Windoze and its foibles & peculiarities - despite Dave Roths' excellent Windoze orientated books and website.
A user level that continues to overstate my experience :-))