Directory names that contain spaces are indeed a problem for Inline - and should be avoided. Other than that, none of those workarounds should be necessary.

Both modules build and work straight out of the box on Win32 if you're using dmake and the MinGW compiler. With ActiveState build 815, dmake and MinGW can be used seamlessly with ActiveState perl. Otherwise it is better to also install ExtUtils::FakeConfig (if you want to use MinGW with MSVC-built perl).

However, both Inline::C and Inline::CPP also build and work straight out of the box for me with VC++7.0. (With VC++ 6.0 I think there was some minor difficulty getting Inline::CPP to build - I forget the details.)

Perhaps your problem is with the "2003" version. The free version you can get from Microsoft is notorious for not giving you everything it should. The 'Readme.win32' file in the perl source distro contains a good account of the extra (free) stuff that needs to be dug up and downloaded. I really don't know why anyone would bother with it, given the comparative ease with which MinGW can be installed. If you're using a purchased version of Visual Studio then, afaik, everything should just simply work fine.

Can't quite get a handle on your exact details, but it seems likely to me that something in your setup is not right.

Cheers,
Rob