I can make console apps pretty well, but I'm looking to ease my way into 2d graphics. I want to make a nonconsole text-based game with a background and click options(not using very technical terms lol) I will need as many details as you can give. Also i would like someone to explain how to publish a finished program so others can use it without me having to give them the code.

Well, to start using graphics for text, you'll need at this point to choose a graphic library that you want to work with, the overall notion for C++ says that you're better off with either SDL or SFML.
I don't know much about SFML, but I think that it's higher level, so it's easier to learn and use.
My expertise is set in SDL, so I can provide links for that if that helps, the best place to start would be this site:
http://lazyfoo.net/SDL_tutorials/index.php
Or if you prefer the following site is better at explanations of the process and, in my opinion, is better to get started up with the basics of SDL before you head over to lazyfoo above:
http://www.aaroncox.net/tutorials/2dtutorials/index.html

As for publishing, I'm not sure, but it's probably IDE specific.
If you're using Visual Studio, after compiling just go to the location in which your project is saved and there should be a folder named either 'Debug' or 'Release' according to your configuration settings for the project, you can change this on the top of the IDE next to the Run button.
Should probably be a similiar method for other IDEs though, just go to the project's folder and you should find something useful.

Once you have the .exe you can start distributing it, but you'll most likely need to pack this along:
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=29
That's for x86 VS2008 though, so make sure that you find the right version if that's not the one that you need.
A computer that doesn't have Visual Studio installed needs to have run this program once in its' lifetime to allow a VS created program to run on it.

Hope this all helps.

I'm still very confused about the graphics. Are there any good tutorials out there that explain how the graphics work and how to use them. Also is there a non-zipped download for SDL because i'm a noob with zip files lol