Well, I'm 99.99% sure I wasn't confused. Basically, I developed under 5.6.1/5.8.4 on the laptop. 5.8.4 passed the test with 'use utf8', and 5.6.1 failed it with utf8 loaded until I removed it; then 5.6.1 passed without it.

I checked the source into SVN and checked it out on the the desktop upstairs. 5.8.4 passed with utf8. 5.6.1 on the desktop FAILED the test without use utf8. So, I put utf8 back in for 5.6.1 and it too passed. I checked in to SVN and went back downstairs to the laptop.

I checkout out the SVN on the laptop. 5.6.1 failed with utf8 loaded, and 5.8.4 passed. I removed utf8 from that test and 5.6.1 now passed. Rinse, Lather, Repeat.

Thus far, these things are the same between the laptop and desktop: XP SP2, ActiveState Perl 5.6.1.630, Class::DBI, DBI, Error, Locale::Maketest, I18N::LangTags, and Win32::Locale, Test::Simple.

This is why the plea for help. Nothing is standing out as a reason why use utf8 make string compares fail from one install to the next. Should I even be using utf8 in the test, or just in the language files that actually have UTF8 text in the %Lexicon source?