Until November 7th, 2006 Microsoft is offering the “Express Editions” of their Visual Studio programs for free. Download them here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/

These are feature-rich development environment for creating Windows programs and for your beginners, a great way to learn. Included are Visual Basic 2005, Visual C# 2005, and an ASP.Net 2005 developer environment. After November 7th, the price will most likely be $50, so go ahead and grab them now!