[perl-win32-gui-hackers] Multiple ActiveState Perl installs on one machine [Was:Any release soon?]

[Robert M. <rm...@po...>]

Glenn Linderman wrote:

> On approximately 6/20/2005 11:29 AM, came the following characters 
> from the keyboard of Robert May:
>
>> Do we have anyone with VC++ and perl 5.6 who can do the 5.6 build for 
>> us?  If not we might have to go with MinGW for this?
>
> Again, if someone can step in and point me at documentation for 
> installing multiple ActiveState Perl versions on one box, and easily 
> switch between, I'd be glad to give that a whirl... which would enable 
> me to build for 5.6 as well, I would think.  I know people are doing 
> it, but I've never bothered to figure out how for myself.... I'm 
> willing to spend a little time on it, but not enough to reinvent it 
> from scratch!
>
> This info is probably easily available on some mailing list I'm not 
> subscribed to!

Well, I found snippets of information, but nothing definitive on my 
searches around the web, so I decided to give it a go myself.  It seems 
pretty straight-forward.  Here's what I did on both my WIn98 and W2k boxes:

(1) Download the MSI's for the versions you want from ActiveState (in my 
case 5.6.1 and 5.8.7)

(2) Uninstall any current version - this may not be necessary, but I 
wanted to change the path
for the version I had installed.
- run the uninstaller from start->settings->control panel->add/remove 
programs
- remove remaining files (C:\Perl and subdirsin my case).  It may be 
worth a look at
  what's left to build a list of the modules you installed and will need 
to re-install.
- reboot.  May not be necessry, but no harm.

(3) Install the new versions, changing the install paths.
I found that the installer didn't allow me to change the paths on the 
third screen of
the install wizzard unless I went on to the next page, and then went 
back again.
I used the following paths for the installs:
C:\Perl\5.6.1
C:\Perl\5.8.7

I didn't install PPM2 for the 5.6.1 version, nor did I install the ISAPI 
or PerlScript parts.

Uncheck the 'set path' option for at least one of the installs (I 
unchecked it for both, and now
have a couple of batch scripts/commnad prompt shortcuts to launch me 
command line
environments with one perl or the other in my path)

I also unchecked the 'Create perl file extension association' check box 
checked on both of the installs.

(4) Check your versions:
C:\Perl\5.6.1\bin\perl -v
C:\Perl\5.8.7\bin\perl -v
perl -v                       (to find out which, if either are found by 
your path settings)

(5) Check your @INC
C:\Perl\5.6.1\bin\perl -V
C:\Perl\5.8.7\bin\perl -V

(6) Add 'site' libs to your @INC (if they are not there)
in my case I found that @INC only included the relavent core lib directory.

I fixed this by adding 2 new registry values:

To HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Perl add 2 new string values (SV).
sitelib-5.6.1 with value "C:/Perl/5.6.1/site/lib/"
sitelib-5.8.7 with value "C:/Perl/5.8.7/site/lib/"

recheck you @INC with perl -V.

(6) re-download and install all the extra modules you want.  This is 
your chance to get up
to the latest versions of them!

If using PPM take care to use the right one, and have the right perl on 
the path..
I believe that it is possible to configure one PPM to manage multiple 
installs (ppm help settings -
look for 'targets'), but I haven't tried this.

I have succesfully built both 5.6 and 5.8 PPMs from the Win32::GUI 
source under MinGW in this configuration.

Let me know if I can provide any more information.  Good luck.

Rob.