It is a little hard to follow which combinations of client version and OS version you tried and which have worked, but I think you are saying that you only have the problem under XP? eg. The client works on WS2003?

If so, the best I advice I can offer you is to ensure that your XP machine is fully updated.

Also, I haven't seen where you've checked the return from new Cache::MemCached?

I'd strongly suggest you change your test script to:

use strict;
use warnings;

use Data::Dumper;
use Cache::Memcached;

my $CACHE = new Cache::Memcached( { servers => [ "myremotecache.com:11
+211" ] })
    or die "$! / $^E"; 

print Dumper($CACHE->stats());
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And see what if any extra information that provides.

No extra information from the "or die ..." catch unfortunately. It doesn't fault there.

Yes, the ONLY problem I have is with a fully updated Windows XP (SP3) client to (seemingly) anything. I've also ruled out any firewalls or anti-virus software

Are other people running it (the perl client) on XP without problems? I assume so - or am I doing something really peculiar in wanting to do that?

Cache::Memcached works "well" on Win32 for me, except that there seems to be a newline issue when connecting to a Linux memcached. Connecting to the local memcached makes the following program pass without warnings:

#!/usr/bin/env perl -w

use strict;
use Test::More;
use Cache::Memcached;


#my $testaddr = "aliens:11211";
my $testaddr = "localhost:11211";
    plan tests => 20;

my $memd = Cache::Memcached->new({
    servers   => [ $testaddr ],
    namespace => "Cache::Memcached::t/$$/" . (time() % 100) . "/",
});

isa_ok($memd, 'Cache::Memcached');

my $memcached_version;

#eval {
#    require version;
#    die "version too old" unless $version::VERSION >= 0.77;
#    $memcached_version =
#        version->parse(
#            $memd->stats('misc')->{hosts}->{$testaddr}->{misc}->{vers
+ion}
#        );
#    diag("Server version: $memcached_version") if $memcached_version;
#};
#diag $@ if $@;

ok($memd->set("key1", "val1"), "set key1 as val1");

is($memd->get("key1"), "val1", "get key1 is val1");
ok(! $memd->add("key1", "val-replace"), "add key1 properly failed");
ok($memd->add("key2", "val2"), "add key2 as val2");
is($memd->get("key2"), "val2", "get key2 is val2");

ok($memd->replace("key2", "val-replace"), "replace key2 as val-replace
+");
is($memd->get("key2"), "val-replace", "get key2 is val-replace");
ok(! $memd->replace("key-noexist", "bogus"), "replace key-noexist prop
+erly failed");

ok($memd->delete("key1"), "delete key1");
ok(! $memd->get("key1"), "get key1 properly failed");

SKIP: {
  skip "Could not parse server version; version.pm 0.77 required", 7
      unless $memcached_version;
  skip "Only using prepend/append on memcached >= 1.2.4, you have $mem
+cached_version", 7
      unless $memcached_version && $memcached_version >= v1.2.4;

  ok(! $memd->append("key-noexist", "bogus"), "append key-noexist prop
+erly failed");
  ok(! $memd->prepend("key-noexist", "bogus"), "prepend key-noexist pr
+operly failed");
  ok($memd->set("key3", "base"), "set key3 to base");
  ok($memd->append("key3", "-end"), "appended -end to key3");
  ok($memd->get("key3", "base-end"), "key3 is base-end");
  ok($memd->prepend("key3", "start-"), "prepended start- to key3");
  ok($memd->get("key3", "start-base-end"), "key3 is base-end");
}

# also test creating the object with a list rather than a hash-ref
my $mem2 = Cache::Memcached->new(
                                 servers   => [ ],
                                 debug     => 1,
                                );
isa_ok($mem2, 'Cache::Memcached');
ok($mem2->{debug}, "debug is set on alt constructed instance");
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This is using Cache::Memcached 1.28.

I'm using Strawberry Perl, but I doubt that this is the cause:

This is perl, v5.10.0 built for MSWin32-x86-multi-thread

Copyright 1987-2007, Larry Wall

Perl may be copied only under the terms of either the Artistic License
+ or the
GNU General Public License, which may be found in the Perl 5 source ki
+t.

Complete documentation for Perl, including FAQ lists, should be found 
+on
this system using "man perl" or "perldoc perl".  If you have access to
+ the
Internet, point your browser at http://www.perl.org/, the Perl Home Pa
+ge.
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