[Bioperl-l] Windows Installation help

[Madhusudan Natarajan]

Hi,
  I'm relatively new to the Perl world. I'm trying to install BioPerl on my
windows machine (DOS, not Cygwin) in an attempt to make it work with MATLAB.
I tried using the ppm installer and find one of two problems

1. Using the syntax from the install.WIN file I tried
rep add bioperl http:/bioperl.org/DIST         and then
search bioperl.

This search always yields nothing. I get a "No matches for bioperl; see
'help search'"

After playing with this for a bit and trying all sorts of things I managed
to use

2. rep add ftp://ftp.bioperl.org/pub/DIST     and then
search bioperl                 yields a few packages. However
install [N] fails to install and yields
a 404 with "Failed to download .../File-Temp.ppd"

Why would the first fail and only the second recognize a few ppd archives as
available? I tried looking at list archives and saw identical messages by
Julian Dow almost two years ago -- but seem to find only recommendations for
using Cygwin and no real fixes. Since this isn't really an option for me
(since I want to use it with MATLAB) I'm stuck trying to get this to work.
Is there something I'm missing? Pointers to information would be most
appreciated. If not, if someone has any info on how to get MATLAB's attached
version of perl to recognize a nmake install of bioperl, that would also
save my bacon.

Many thanks.