Shoutbox

VC++.NET is the MS devkit, so is probably more suited to Windows development than Dev-C++, which doesn't come with a Windows SDK.

As for whether to learn C or C++ first, please, please, learn C first! It'll teach you how to handle pointers properly (and the Win32 API is in C).
C++ is more typesafe, but C forces good programming technique, otherwise it all goes wrong.