http://johnbokma.com/perl/make-for-windows.html

But I get fatal errors with that too:

C:\DOCUME~1\nburger\Desktop\PERL&T~1\Tcl-0.84>nmake

Microsoft (R) Program Maintenance Utility   Version 1.50
Copyright (c) Microsoft Corp 1988-94. All rights reserved.

        cl -c  -IC:/Tcl/include  -nologo -Gf -W3 -MD -Zi -DNDEBUG -O1 
+-DWIN32 -D_CONSOLE -DNO_STRICT -DHAVE_DES_FCRYPT -DNO_HASH_SEE
D -DPERL_IMPLICIT_CONTEXT -DPERL_IMPLICIT_SYS -DUSE_PERLIO -DPERL_MSVC
+RT_READFIX -MD -Zi -DNDEBUG -O1    -DVERSION=\"0.84\"  -DXS_VE
RSION=\"0.84\"  "-IC:\Perl\lib\CORE"   Tcl.c
'cl' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
NMAKE : fatal error U1077: 'C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe' : return code
+ '0x1'
Stop.
[download]

P.S. Although it's trivial to know that you need a compiler to compile something, I would say that it's not trivial to know what compilers will work and if I already had one installed ;) Make is trying, and perl -V:Make seems to indicate that nmake is being used (even though I couldn't find it). In any case, I really appreciate your help, because figuring this stuff out is quite a project for me.

'cl' is not recognized as an internal or means you still do not have compiler in your PATH.
you probably installed IDE but you also need vcvars32.bat or better yet just tune environment vars as described in readme.win32 or Perl source distro

addition it is supported 3 compilers to perl on win32 (not counting cygwin) and they are inter-compatible in that sence you can build extensiion with different compiler that was used to build core perl.
at least they are trying to do so

but you will face less difficulries if you'll use same compiler

Best regards,
Courage, the Cowardly Dog