As a new user of VB.Net, I'm getting a rather
discouraging error in all of the sample apps that I run
(including ones downloaded directly from Microsof).  The
only time I don't get this exception thrown is on the
most basic of Windows applications (the app shell
generated by the application wizard).  Here is the
exception I'm seeing:

****
A first chance exception of
type 'System.NullReferenceException' occurred in
system.windows.forms.dll

Additional information: Object reference not set to an
instance of an object.
****

This exception is thrown on the first line of code in my
main form: "Public Class frmMain" (although it obviously
doesn't seem to matter what my form name is).

As I said, I've run *several* of the so-called "test
applications" (since I want to learn) but they keep
returning this exception.  I've installed the .NET
Framework sp2 and any other updates I can find on the
msdn download site, but nothing seems to help.

Hope someone has the answer, as I'm really in the dark on
this one - especially being so new to this environment.

I'd be happy to provide any other info as needed,
although I don't know if there's much more I could give.

Thanks!
Matt