Installing ActivePerl for Windows

Installing ActivePerl using the State Tool (beta)

The State Tool is the command line interface (CLI) for the ActiveState Platform. You can use it to authenticate with the Platform, and then download and configure your ActivePerl 5.28 runtime environment.

  1. If you don’t already have the State Tool installed, open Windows Powershell as Administrator and run the following command to set it up:

    IEX(New-Object Net.WebClient).downloadString('https://platform.activestate.com/dl/cli/install.ps1')

  2. Open the command prompt (cmd.exe) and run state activate ActiveState/ActivePerl-5.28. This command downloads the runtime environment from the ActiveState Platform, configures it, and creates an “activated state”, an isolated environment for you to work in.

For information on installing and working with the State Tool, see the State Tool section in the ActiveState Platform documentation.

Installing ActivePerl using the Windows installer

You can install ActivePerl by downloading and running the Setup Wizard (.exe). For more complex installations you can run the Setup Wizard on the command line.

Before you begin

Before you start the installation, you need to ensure that your system meets the prerequisites, and that you do not have other Perl distributions that are going to conflict with ActivePerl.

Prerequisites

  • Windows Server 2008, 7, Server 2012, 8 (x86 and x64), and 10.
  • The installation requires at least 200 MB of hard drive space
  • Perl for ISAPI requires an ISAPI-compatible web server, such as IIS
  • PerlScript requires an ActiveX scripting host such as Internet Explorer or Windows Scripting Host
  • Perl Environment Variables: if Perl environment variables such as PERLLIB, PERL5LIB or PERL5OPT have been set on your system, you should unset them before installing ActivePerl. Otherwise, these variables may cause incompatible versions of Perl modules to be used during the installation process.
  • System Account: (EXE Installer only) Do not launch the installation package from a directory for which the “System” account does not have read permission. If you do, the Windows Installer Service will not be able to access the EXE file in order to perform the installation. You may get an error message to this effect, or it may fail mysteriously.
  • Administrative Privileges: ActivePerl installations must be performed by a privileged user only. If you install ActivePerl without full administrator privileges, the following problems occur:
    • Environment variables are set only for the current user
    • PerlScript file associations are not created
    • The PerlScript feature will be unavailable
    • Registry entries are created under HKEY_CURRENT_USER and not under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
    • IIS script mappings are not set
    • ActivePerl applications will not write messages to the event log
    • ActivePerl only appears in the Add/Remove Programs list for the current user

Upgrading ActivePerl

Upgrading from earlier ActivePerl versions requires that you delete the old version of ActivePerl, and then install the 5.28 version.

Using the ActivePerl Setup Wizard

There are two ways to install ActivePerl with the setup wizard:

  1. You can run the setup wizard and enter the required information to install the software.
  2. If you want to automate the installation, you can run the setup wizard from the command line.

Running the ActivePerl Setup Wizard

When you install ActivePerl, you should run the setup wizard as an Administrator.

Note: If you do not have Administrator rights on the computer, you can use the generic ActiveState Package Installer to complete the installation.

  1. Download and save the .exe installation package.
  2. Right-click the .exe file and select Run As Administrator.
  3. Follow the prompts on screen to complete the installation.

Running the installation as an Administrator allows other users on the computer to use ActivePerl, and ensures that all of ActivePerl’s features function correctly.

Running the ActivePerl Setup Wizard on the command line

You can install ActivePerl from the command line. You should start the command prompt as an Administrator to ensure the the installation can complete successfully. ActivePerl’s installer uses Windows Installer technology, which allows you to partially control the install from the command line.

Starting the Setup Wizard

You can start the Setup Wizard from the command line, and walk through the installation steps in the user interface.

c:\> ActivePerl-<version>.exe

Logging the Setup Wizard output

If you want to enable logging you can add the appropriate command line switches to specify the level of logging and the log file location. The following command will generate a log of the install in “install.log” in the current directory.

c:\> ActivePerl-<version>.exe /L*v ./install.log

Specifying a custom installation directory

You can also specify a custom installation directory instead of using the default.

c:\> ActivePerl-<version>.exe APPDIR=C:\apps\Perl

Complete installation example

You can combine command line options to complete your custom installation from the command line. For example, the following command will install ActivePerl to C:\apps\Perl.

c:\> ActivePerl-<version>.exe /qn+ APPDIR="C:\apps\Perl" ^
     /L*v ./install.log

For more information about the command line installation options, contact support@activestate.com

Uninstalling ActivePerl

The ActivePerl for Windows can be uninstalled using the Modify, Repair or Uninstall ActivePerl shortcut in the ActiveState ActivePerl 2.7 program group in the Windows Start menu, or you can use Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel.

Alternatively, you use the setup wizard (.exe) file to uninstall ActivePerl on the command line and write the progress to a log file:

c:\> ActivePerl-<version>.exe /x // /L*v ./uninstall.log