I found that, in Abcd.pm, the statement bootstrap Abcd $Version; fails to load Abcd.dll

Could it be that, instead of bootstrap Abcd $Version; you should have bootstrap Abcd $VERSION;. The usual convention is to assign the version number to $VERSION, but if you have, in fact, assigned it to $Version, then I guess bootstrap Abcd $Version; should work.

Cheers,
Rob