[LostZaphod]

From my unserstanding the perl items are no longer necessary. For example, in Linux I have never run them and all of the quests work.

The issuse with the xml file is syntax. XML is very sensitive to nodes. If there is "<xxx>" there must be "</xxx>" .
Make sure you have a beginning and a ending for each sub item, items can have items for example server has world and database (world has shortname, longname loginserver.... ).
Another solution is to extract the file again and make the modifications needed.
If not here is a copy...

<?xml version="1.0">
<server>
        <world>
                <shortname>minilogin</shortname>
                <longname>My Minilogin</longname>
                
                <!-- Only specify these two if you really think you need to. -->
		<address>127.0.0.1</address>
		<localaddress>127.0.0.1</localaddress>
		
		<!-- Loginserver information.  -->
        <loginserver>
		<host>127.0.0.1</host>
		<port>5999</port>
		<account></account>
		<password></password>
        </loginserver>

                <!-- Sets the shared key used by zone/launcher to connect to world -->
                <key>some long random string</key>

                <!-- Enable and set the port for the HTTP service. -->
                <http port="9080" enabled="true" mimefile="mime.types" />
        </world>

                <!-- Database configuration, replaces db.ini. -->
        <database>
                <host>localhost</host>
                <port>3306</port>
                <username>eq</username>
                <password>eq</password>
                <db>eq</db>
        </database>
</server>