Being a web-oriented developer, I have decided to start looking into WPF in order to prep for future Silverlight development.  I plan to blog through my learning process.  If you're interested, stay tuned to this channel for WPF through a newbie's perspective.  Also, if there's specific aspects of WPF you'd like to see me look into, fee free to leave comments to that affect.  Seeing as how there seems to be a drastic shortage of VB.NET WPF code on the net, I plan to do at least some of my exploration in VB.NET.  This should also be interesting with VBx coming out "soon." 

I'll start by opening a new VB WPF Application in Orcas Beta 1:

Here's the result:
 

VS creates two XAML and code-behind files.  To see how the application behavior is configured, take a look at the project settings:
 

Observations:

• "Startup object" has become "Startup URI."  This can also be set in the "Application" node in Application.xaml:

• "Shutdown mode" has three settings - similarly to WinForms 2.0.  These settings can also be set in the "Application" node in Application.xaml:

• Many settings in the page are stored in Application.xaml.  Clicking "Edit XAML" (in VB) opens this file for manual editing.
  

A simple F5 runs our high-tech program:

More text time...