Oracle Database Discussions

I have installed Oracle 10G R2 to use it for a class in PL/SQL I am taking. Everything seems to work fine. However, I now have a problem with my existing Perl programs. I have Perl 5.8.4 installed and in C:\Perl\bin. Oracle seems to come with its own version of Perl - 5.8.3. It has "muscled" in to my environment and path variables and now when I tyr to run my existing Perl programs I encounter some errors.

Here is a view of the error message I receive

Perl lib version (v5.8.3) doesn't match executable version (v5.8.4) at C:\oracle\product\1
0.2.0\db_1\perl\5.8.3\lib/MSWin32-x86-multi-thread/Config.pm line 32.
Compilation failed in require at C:\oracle\product\10.2.0\db_1\perl\5.8.3\lib/Time/Local.p
m line 5.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at C:\oracle\product\10.2.0\db_1\perl\5.8.3\lib/Time/Loc
al.pm line 5.
Compilation failed in require at C:\oracle\product\10.2.0\db_1\perl\site\5.8.3\lib/HTTP/Da
te.pm line 12.
Compilation failed in require at C:\oracle\product\10.2.0\db_1\perl\site\5.8.3\lib/LWP/Use
rAgent.pm line 14.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at C:\oracle\product\10.2.0\db_1\perl\site\5.8.3\lib/LWP
/UserAgent.pm line 14.

I have tried modifying the path and environment variables without success. I have heard from some classmates that these perl problems have been encountered and solved before. I am lookign for some advice on how to proceed.