Perl module broke my windows xampp installation - perl

Question

PROBLEM: In the process of trying to install gitstat on a Windows7 machine I broke my xampp Apache installation. Now I can't get gitstat or apache to work.
APACHE ERROR:
[error] Can't load Perl file: C:/xampp/apache/conf/extra/startup.pl for server localhost:80, exiting...`
Other people have reported this issue being caused by the PERL5LIB environment variable, but that variable does not exist on my machine.
WHAT I DID / GITSTAT ERROR:
I needed the SOAP::Lite module installed so I followed the windows guide here: http://soaplite.com/install.html
As far as I could tell I installed the module successfully, console output below
cpan[1]> install SOAP::Lite
CPAN: Storable loaded ok (v2.21)
Going to read '\xampp\perl\bin\.cpan\Metadata'
Database was generated on Wed, 27 Jun 2012 02:47:03 GMT
SOAP::Lite is up to date (0.714).
I saw a SOAP directory in perl/site/lib which (to me) means that the module should be available. When I look in my perllocal.pod file SOAP:Lite is in there.
Part of the gitstat installation instructions say to copy the Lite.pm file from perl/site/lib/SOAP into gitstat\gstat_pl\lib
However, when I try to perform step nine of gitstat installation (perl gitstat.pl HEAD) I get the following:
C:\xampp\htdocs\gitstat\gstat_pl>perl gitstat.pl HEAD
Supported versions:
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at C:/xampp/perl/site/lib/SOAP/Lite.pm line 34
86.
Compilation failed in require at C:/xampp/perl/site/lib/SOAP/Constants.pm line 1
3.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at C:/xampp/perl/site/lib/SOAP/Constants.pm li
ne 13.
Compilation failed in require at lib/Lite.pm line 3444.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at lib/Lite.pm line 3444.
Compilation failed in require at gitstat.pl line 30.
If I don't copy the file from perl/site/lib/SOAP then I get
C:\xampp\htdocs\gitstat\gstat_pl>perl gitstat.pl HEAD
Can't locate lib/Lite.pm in #INC (#INC contains: C:/xampp/perl/lib C:/xampp/perl
/site/lib .) at gitstat.pl line 30.
I don't understand why CPAN didn't install the Lite.pm module in the #INC path or why the compilation might fail when the module is available, or most importantly why my Apache install is broken. Also I'm very new to Perl and CPAN and my understanding of Apache is primitive so simpler explanations would be greatly appreciated.