>OK, I am considering throwing in the towel. I have decided to give dotnet a try. I have read several books about C# and VB#, and I believe that I will be able to write some code relatively fast. But I don't want to start in the wrong end, I want to do it right from the start, so I ask for some advice

C# 2012 for Programmers (5th Edition) (Deitel Developer Series)

I used this book and it was terrific.
Be patient and go through all the console projects. They will help your learn the syntax, etc.
It will take a couple of weeks, but it's worth every minute.

Regarding Winforms or WPF - wait till you've learned the language and get a few projects under your belt and you can decide for yourself.
I can do either, but usually do winforms.

A big decision for you down the road will be how to handle your data.
I started with typed datasets and still use them, but based on what I see now, I'd probably start out with Entity Framework.