Yes, as you say, it sounds like your system interpreted your command as two different commands, with the space between 'Program' and 'Files'.

• Is 'C:\Program Files\xampp\perl\bin' in your path? (Right click on my computer, properties, advanced, environment variables->System variables->path). If not, I'd suggest adding it and trying again.
• You might also cd to C:\Program Files\xampp\perl\bin, and run perl -MCPAN -e shell.
• Lastly, you can put the full pathname in double quotes, like "C:\Program Files\xampp\perl\bin\perl" to reference the perl binary.