Embedded XT & Visual Basic

Here we go again....  Boss has decided on running our datalogging project on
XPe.
Now he is talking about going with a easier, more popular programming
language.
Currently I used Delphi 6, however he would like to see Visual Basic or
Visual C++ because he feels
they are both Microsoft Products, and it would be much easier to find a
replacement programmer if he
ever needs to (Gee Thanks!).  I know VB, not a pro but pretty decent at it,
but I have used it pretty often several years ago in the VB 4 days.


Project - Remote Datalogger grabbing info from 32 ADC Channels on PC104
Card, grabbing some Modbus stuff, storing info on USB Flash.  User Interface
will be done via TCPIP or Serial Dial Up.

Questions,
Is there any known issues developing VB applications to run under XP?
I need to research all this .Net stuff, but is the .Net that much different,
is there a large learning curve?

Opinions and advice requested.  Hopefully, the boss man quits flipping me
around so much so we can get started.

Richard