I prefer Xemacs. One word of caution, when you install xemacs on Windows, it will ask if you want a native or cygwin install. I have found I need both. tramp only seems to work with the native install and efs seems to only work with the cygwin install. At least this is the case for me. Others might be smart enough to make it all work.

Frankly I try to avoid Windows. Cygwin is really cool but you're still on Windows and there are just too many things that can and do go wrong.

For writting perl scripts on windows, I've also found that using a text editor that was written to run just on Windows is ususally better if you're stuck on Windows. Editplus and Textpad are good choices. Just google for "Windows text editor"