Thinking of moving to .NET because of standalone... any suggestions?

Hey Guys, Coming from a C and Java background I just loved PHP and have been programming with it for years thanks in a large part to the kind people on this list... present and past (Immediately the name John Holmes comes to mind.. i hope the dude is well) but now I have have to leave PHP or split time between php and .NET for just one reason: .NET offers a way to run programs using the Windows GUI / stand alone executable There always was talk on the list about running php code as standalone, but since I had a long absence from the list sorry if I missed any new updates... but I'm hoping someone can offer a way to run php standalone executable. Before posting I always google, and the main results I have gotten so far is: priado blender and PHP-GTK but no way to kind of drag and drop what you need like visual studio (i dont know how to use it yet, but been reading) or some other visual development tool like visual basic. I need to make a few standalones programs that will run (mostly) on Windows... is there any other way that I have not found that i can use PHP instead of learning something new like .NET? I have resisted going "the microsoft way" for years.. looks like my luck has run out... Thanks, Ryan