I do like the PPM GUI and I think it's worth using. Having said that, I find the command line PPM invaluable because of all the respositories. (I know there are ways to add repositories to PPM4, but I haven't really looked at that yet.)

What has worked for me was to first install an earlier version of ActivePerl that contains the command line PPM, then upgrade to the newest ActivePerl. Upgrading to the newest version retains the command line PPM and adds the GUI.

For instance, you could install 5.8.7 build 817 (later versions might still contain the command line PPM, but I know 817 still has it), and then install the most recent version.

In this set up, if you open a command prompt and enter ppm, it will start the GUI PPM and ppm3 will start the command line version.

Cheers,

Brent