Here are some updated specifics: 1. The module asked for a specific version of another module. There was only a much later version of that on CPAN. I updated the Makefile.pl that came to ask for the later version when I did the manual make. I was unable to install the required module OLE::Storage_Lite as well. But I never got far enough into the install for that to be a problem. 2. Someone pointed me to ppm, which I used. I entered a repository. When I used ppm ppm> install Spreadsheet::ParseExcel I got an error message 'no suitable installation target for module found' This is consistent with the error messages I got when I tried to do the installation manually. These had reported that a mkdir operation failed. I suspect there is a key directory in my perl installation C:\perl\... missing. Oh yeah, almost forgot, I am running ActivePerl on Windows XP. My system has no proxy. We seem to be pulling files off of CPAN OK. Thanks for your attention! maryfran