I don't want you to take my word for it but my personal opinion is very simple: I hear .NET and I start running away (too much software requirements slow to compile/run incredibly wastefull memorywise).. VB6 sucks but it's easy and fast to do stuff in (and sure requires a lot less than .NET).. VC++ is too messy for my taste (but then I have very radical opinions). Delphi is nice, in fact anything Borland Based is very nice.. for C++ I like Borland Builder (not even sure they still sell that).. In my personal experience of choosing programming languages I tend to lean on VB (for fast-easy development) or Pure Assemply 32Bit Protected Mode using RadASM or just the Turbo Assembler compiler (for performance critical applications) .. sometimes I integrate VB with ASM, but honestly, I just like to keep things simple..
Now, you should most definitely wait for the opinion of someone less "radical" before making your mind...

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