A programming language for an amateur?

Question

.NET

Good time,
help me decide on the choice of language for writing programs with the following nuances:
1) Windows only (Xp, 7, 10, 11, ..);
2) Without pre-installation of frameworks for the application user's machine;
3) The application is compiled (preferably for portable use);
4) Applications with GUI (WinFroms 32 is enough). Also mostly working with arrays, regexp and disk;
5) It is desirable to have an IDE and free libraries for code minimization;
6) There are enough procedural language capabilities, there are no performance requirements;
7) "Fashion" and perspective of the language are not important. Convenience and ease of use are more important (C++ is not an option).

I am familiar with VB.Net and it is quite suitable, but it is not clear which one version of .Net to use for WinXp-Win11+
I think to look towards Delphi, but I don’t know at all what is happening there now.
Ideally, if it were possible to compile Perl or Python into portable EXE Win32 ..

Answer 1

C# or Delphi will do.

Answer 2

Why is this even needed under XP? This is already a fierce necrophilia. As in other things, and Windows 7 already.
I would only look at Windows 10-11 (although the latter is still a big question, but it's still worth looking at) and .Net 5-6 in C # "execution".

Answer 3

The new Delphi is a free Community Edition.

Answer 4

And what justifies such a breadth of operating systems?
If you drop XP from the list, then you can safely take C# or vbnet + .net 6
In general, there is no one framework to fully cover all OSes, maybe:
7-11: you can use .NET 6
XP: You can use .NET FW 4 or 3.5. But at the same time, 3.5 must be additionally turned on by hand on newer OSes, but on 11 it seems to be completely absent.
I'm not sure about modern versions of Delphi, but there will definitely be problems with libraries.

Answer 5

Through py2exe and PyInstaller, you can also create an exe from Python. There is also Perl2Exe.

Answer 6

I checked several options for compatibility on different computers, you never know who will be interested.
1) Win10x64 with VS2022; 2) Win10x64 clean; 3) Win7Sp1x64 clean; 4) Win11 was not at hand (
A simple form of WinForm x32 with several elements, compiled into EXE.
a) Lazarus 2.012 + Free Pascal. Works great everywhere. It looks like the most versatile option for Windows. It's a pity there is not enough literature on it (
b) VS2022 C # 10 Net FW 4.5. Works everywhere. FW, although it is not developing, but I think you can use it for a long time. Although if FW support is removed, for example, in Win12, it will be unpleasant
. Works only after installing the appropriate frameworks (Net FW4.5 is not enough).
d) Python3.6 + py2exe. Works everywhere, but even a simple form of Tk drags along 900+ small files. Such a solution for portable ..
With large projects, it will apparently become more and more difficult, but that's another story)
In general, my conclusions are as follows - hoping that your software will work for 10 years on one computer is very optimistic)
Perhaps, in terms of total costs, it is more profitable to write on fresh and up-to-date and update the code every few years following new frameworks, rather than trying to choose a tool with long-term support from the OS. stopped working during update.
PS: In any case, respect to Pascal)