I just got the C++ for Dummies book and it says that this program is recommended but it costs way too much for me. I was wondering if there was somewhere on the internet anyone knows of that I could download it?
No, that would be illegal.
But you can get a nice IDE from www.bloodshed.net called Dev-C++. It has a different front and back end than the Microsoft compiler, but it's free and they both conform to ANSI standards (for the most part) which I hope the book does, too.
I personally love bloodshes. Not Windows-only. Also if you've already done some MFC work they have some tools to help with it, not as easy as MFC but if you know what you are doing it is nice to have. I only use .Net because I'm too lazy to do research on a nice C# compiler