Barbara,
There’s a related post here: Perl 5.32 Perl script run as command found in path receives no arguments - #13 by ActiveState-Support
The State Tool is intentionally NOT making global changes or registry entries, so that it can deploy Perl into a virtual environment and not conflict with other users or other software or other Perls. The workflow you’ve been using needs a Perl that does the opposite; a “There can be only one” Perl, which makes changes to the registry when it installs.
If you use the “state checkout” command instead of the “state activate” you get closer to the “there-can-be-only-one”. To get the rest of what you have been used to though, manual additions to the registry need to be made.