nsPerl is a binary distribution of dynamic Perl. To install it: cd # to the directory in which you want to install it. unzip nsPerl5.005_03-12-MSWin32-x86.zip cd nsPerl5.005_03 .\install bin\MSWin32-x86\nsperl is your new Perl interpreter. For example: bin\MSWin32-x86\nsperl -v To make it easy to run Perl from a command prompt, copy the file bin\MSWin32-x86\nsperl.exe into one of the directories named in your PATH environment variable. Once that's done, the command `nsperl` will run Perl. If you prefer the command `perl`, rename the copy from nsperl.exe to perl.exe. bin contains various Perl scripts. To make it easier to run them from a command prompt, copy them into one of the directories named in your PATH evironment variable. lib\MSWin32-x86\nsPerl contains software that reconfigures Perl to work on your machine. Its source code is in the subdirectory src (which you can discard, without affecting other programs' behavior). The rest of this package was built from standard Perl source code. You can get a copy from http://www.perl.com/CPAN/src/5.0/maint/ or http://www.perl.org To make Perl occupy less disk space, you can remove its documentation; that is lib/pod/html or lib/pod. There's a copy of the documentation at http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/ , although it's not the same version as this copy of Perl. If you want to automate the installation of nsPerl, the algorithm supported in all versions is to execute .\install, with the current working directory set to the only directory unpacked from the archive file. .\install creates a Perl interpreter program named nsperl.exe, which can be moved or copied elsewhere without loss of functionality. - Rich Megginson