[Spookster]

Qt is a framework that uses C++. Qt is supports many different platforms to include support for development on smartphones and tablets. With minimal reading of the documentation even a novice can start building nice GUIs with Qt. The Qt IDE is used for doing several things including visual editing of the GUI, creating the GUI stylesheets and writing C++ but you can also use Qt with Visual Studio to do your C++ development. Qt has the ability to generate Visual Studio project files from it's own Qt project files that allows you to kick off builds with Visual Studio as well as use the Visual Studio debugger. This is how we use it at work.

As for creating an installer for you app that's a different thing altogether. You can use one of the many available installers. Some are free and open source and some cost money. I used to use InstallShield but the licenses are very expensive. Now I use InnoSetup which is free and open source.