I upgraded to the latest version of ActiveState perl as you suggested. Then I reinstalled practically everything.
And here is the current response:

C:\Temp\herehere>perl wma.txt

Microsoft (R) Program Maintenance Utility   Version 1.50
Copyright (c) Microsoft Corp 1988-94. All rights reserved.

        C:\Perl\bin\perl.exe C:\Perl\lib\ExtUtils\xsubpp  -typemap C:\
+Perl\lib\ExtUtils\typemap  wma_txt_8d90.xs > wma_txt_8d90.xsc && C:\P
+erl\bin\per
l.exe -MExtUtils::Command -e mv wma_txt_8d90.xsc wma_txt_8d90.c
        cl -c  -IC:/Temp/herehere  -nologo -GF -W3 -MD -Zi -DNDEBUG -O
+1 -DWIN32 -D_CONSOLE -DNO_STRICT -DHAVE_DES_FCRYPT -DNO_HASH_SEED -DU
+SE_SITECUST
OMIZE -DPRIVLIB_LAST_IN_INC -DPERL_IMPLICIT_CONTEXT -DPERL_IMPLICIT_SY
+S -DUSE_PERLIO -DPERL_MSVCRT_READFIX -MD -Zi -DNDEBUG -O1    -DVERSIO
+N=\"0.00\"
 -DXS_VERSION=\"0.00\"  "-IC:\Perl\lib\CORE"   wma_txt_8d90.c
'cl' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
NMAKE : fatal error U1077: 'C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe' : return code
+ '0x1'
Stop.

A problem was encountered while attempting to compile and install your
+ Inline
C code. The command that failed was:
  nmake > out.make 2>&1

The build directory was:
C:\Temp\herehere\_Inline\build\wma_txt_8d90

To debug the problem, cd to the build directory, and inspect the outpu
+t files.

 at wma.txt line 9
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at wma.txt line 26.

C:\Temp\herehere>
[download]

At least we now seem to be seeing something concrete, namely the complaint about "cl". But I do not know where the compiler is seeing "cl". Any more ideas? Would it be more productive for us to discuss this offline by e-mail?
Thanks, tpp