Several questions:
Can Visual Studio.net open and compile a visual c++ 6.0 project without changing anything? If the answer is yes, is this called unmanaged coding (I find the word "unmanaged" especially offending)? If you do not program for the internet, what is the advantage of switching from C++ to C#? Personally, generic programming with templates and STL (not supported by c#) is far more important than garbage collection (not supported by c++). I have seen lots of new terms (COM, DCOMS, ATL, ActiveX, Windows DNA ...) from Microsoft in the last several years, is C# (and .Net) like one of them?