The Microsoft Beginner Developer Learning Center is a free resource for beginning programmers with little or no experience:

Welcome to the Beginner Developer Learning Center – a centralized learning environment specifically targeted to beginning programmers. Here you’ll find a rich array of learning content that starts with the very basics, and guides you through step-by-step to becoming a fully-fledged developer!

The site, coupled with the free Microsoft Visual Studio Express Editions, makes it a lot easier to get started with .NET programming. There’s even a Kid’s Corner.