I'd suggest that if you're having problems with VS then you're probably guilty of making it complicated for yourself, e.g. by coming into it with assumptions that you'll have to download lots of SDKs and libs, pop them into specific directories, set up paths, etc. None of that is actually necessary with VS - installing is quite literally "Next/Next/Finish" (especially with the Express editions), then you're in File | New | Project, pick your type, add a file, compile, run.

Code::Blocks is updated regularly, but you need to use their nightly builds rather than the "stable release", which they only rarely package for download.