G'day Polyglot,

Firstly, I'm not a big MSWin user and mostly avoid working with it directly. So, feel free to question anything that follows.

"... downgrading to Windows 11." [my additional emphasis]

To the best of my knowledge, "Windows 11" is the latest MSWin offering. Perhaps a typo, or misunderstanding, with "downgrading".

"Does anyone here have it running natively, sans VM?"

Yes, I do. From cmd.exe:

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.19045.2364]
(c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Users\ken>perlmodver DBI
Module: DBI
Version: 1.642
Location: C:/Users/ken/local/opt/strawberry_perl/5_026_003/install/per
+l/vendor/lib/DBI.pm
C:\Users\ken>perlmodver DBD::mysql
Module: DBD::mysql
Version: 4.049
Location: C:/Users/ken/local/opt/strawberry_perl/5_026_003/install/per
+l/vendor/lib/DBD/mysql.pm
[download]

C:\Users\ken>where perlmodver
C:\Users\ken\local\bin\perlmodver.bat

C:\Users\ken>more C:\Users\ken\local\bin\perlmodver.bat
@echo off
perl -E "my ($err_msg, $missing); BEGIN { $err_msg = q{}; $missing = 0
+; eval { require %1; 1; } or ($err_msg, $missing) = ($@,1); } say q{M
+odule: %1}; if ($missing) { say qq{Not installed.\n\@INC:}; say qq{\t
+$_} for @INC; say qq{ERROR MESSAGE:\n$err_msg}; } else { say qq{Versi
+on: $%1::VERSION\nLocation: $INC{q{%1} =~ s{::}{\/}gr . q{.pm}}}; }"
[download]

I would have installed StrawberryPerl v5.26.3 about four years ago; my memory of doing this is now somewhat hazy. I'm 99% certain that I would have installed the DBI and DBD::mysql modules via the cpan utility.

If you're installing via cpan — there are other utilities to do the same, e.g. cpanm & cpanp — ensure that cpan.exe (or equivalent) is in the same bin/ directory as perl.exe.

C:\Users\ken>where perl
C:\Users\ken\local\opt\strawberry_perl\5_026_003\install\perl\bin\perl
+.exe

C:\Users\ken>where cpan
C:\Users\ken\local\opt\strawberry_perl\5_026_003\install\perl\bin\cpan
+.bat
[download]

You will need to install the DBI and DBD::mysql modules with the Perl version you're using. You can't simply copy them from another installation and expect them to work. I suspect this may be (at least part of) the problem you describe in "Re^2: Perl XAMPP DB Connect issue (Windows/Strawberry?)"; although, I am somewhat guessing about that.