I personally suggest you find yourself a copy of qbasic (it came with all MS-DOS versions 5.0 and above) and start with that. The language is simple, and you don't have to learn about Windows at the same time; just a nice, friendly console with 80 columns, 25 lines, and 16 colors.
C is hardly a good language for a beginner. Besides the fact that the syntax is very cryptic, it exposes the user to more details of implentation and more (relatively) dangerous constructs than the beginner needs to deal with.
Hybrid Mode
