In a professional environment I am already running Windows.
I need to use my PC to write to my project journal, keep in touch
with my local workmates using Office Talk, and distant subcontractors
using Netscape e-mail, move files around with Explorer, browse web
sites for chip data (and read my daily Dilbert), assemble PIC code,
and run my application model software in a DOS box.

I really do NOT want to have to learn some obscure app-specific
command line interface, or some home-brewed antique-Borland-C style
User Interface which I doubt will have had as much development time
spent on it as Windows.

Re-inventing user interface software is a utter waste of time.
Learn Visual C++ and MFC. It'll take a lot of hard work,
but at least you'll have a marketable skill at the end of it.

> At a moment, I suffer under the lack of time,

Human time is finite and precious. Don't waste it writing code
that will be obsolete by the time you finish it.