Creating Windows GUIs with C++

[slavik262]

This is only slightly related to robo, but...

I've been making Windows applications for about a year since I took a programming class in school last year. The main thing I've done is a server launcher for Command & Conquer Renegade (an old FPS) and its assorted mods. More to the point, I create installers and distribute my programs over the web. I've been using VB.NET. While I love the language, a lot of people who I distributed the program to have complained about the .NET framework, as it requires a large RAM overhead (my program, while relatively small, takes 20 MB of RAM to run), and is sluggish redrawing the window and such on the screen. They are also frustrated with having to download a relatively large framework in the first place.

I'm working on acquiring a copy of VB6 to circumvent these issues, but at the suggestion of another member of our code team, I'm trying to do something similar in C++

To make a long story short, I've been teaching myself C++ (due to its similarity to the C we use to program our robots with) so that I can create better, smaller, and faster-running apps. However, since I highly doubt that my users would want do everything in command prompt, I want to create a GUI.

I understand it's possible to create windows using only the Windows API, but that's very complex (for me, at this level, anyways), and I've been looking into other options.

A fellow code member on my team suggested I used Glade, which is a GUI builder that uses the GTK+ toolkit.

Does anyone else have any experience, either in Glade or just creating windows with C++ in general, and if so, do you have any advice for me?