I'm writing an open source program that changes colors & plays sounds when keys are pressed. I want it to run in full screen mode and have a child-lock so kids can't exit accidentally. I want it to capture all keys including ctrl alt delete. (So it's partially a game, but partially windows utility.) My target OS is Windows 7 (32 & 64 bit), keeping Windows 8 in mind.

My options:

Visual Studio using .net C# Windows Forms - the devil I know. But not a "game" platform, which is why I'm asking this question.

Visual Studio & XNA - have never used XNA, not sure of capabilities or support future

Python - What flavor, what modules, what IDE? I've never done anything with Python but I found a couple of similar open source projects in python.

Something else that I don't know about?

Any input is appreciated.

Blocking system key combinations is not an usual thing to do. You need to create a low-level keyboard hook who trap the keys. With a quick Google search I found solutions for C#, C++ and Python and it's probably not limited to those. Creating a fullscreen window with graphic and sound possibility is also available on all languages so eventually just use the one you are the most familiar with and just do it.

But by the way, young childrens won't stumble upon ctrl+alt+suppr by mistake if they don't know about it so I wouldn't worry too much about it. Plus, how do YOU plan to exit the application afterward? Unless this is for a school or something where you want to prevent the little rascals to do damage, but they will find a way around it eventually anyway.

use the one you are the most familiar with and just do it.

This is probably the best advice.

I ended up using C# and XNA since it's .net and it was pretty easy to pick up the XNA part.

My daughter is 10 months old, she just pounds keys. I wouldn't put it past her accidentally entering any given key combination given enough time. (I still have to make sure she isn't hitting the screen too hard or trying to pick off the keys, but at least she won't get interrupted or do anything crazy to my computer.)

My actual plan for exiting the system is type 'mommyisawesome' or some other complicated pattern. If the program locks up, I'm hosed, I'm ok with that.

Thanks for your answer!