No offense intended here but everyone has there biases, and I am not attempting to make a personal attack here, but maybe your bias really isn't against Microsoft. I started programming the Amiga back in 85 & 86 with K&R compatible Lattice C.. It's what you get used to and what you like. I went on to work for a company that did animated storybooks for Disney and Universal and others, and I worked on games for those platforms.
From my own experience and yes (I admit I beta tested Direct X 1.0 and over time many other things) I really can't see unless you had some sort of "religious bias" why you wouldn't like Visual Studio. Maybe it's your own feelings holding you back? I do .NET apps every day and I also have done much work with directX (through version 9). Maybe it's that you are doing an invoice system versus game programming that you aren't enjoying things? I will tell you that Visual Studio Express is a great environment for beginning programmers and XNA Game Studio Express is great for creating games. I leverage my old Amiga game development skills very well with Direct X. I also love the new XAML WPF graphics engine. Maybe it's that you are stuck in the land of winforms..
