The easiest one to use with a moderate memory footprint is Visual basic 6. The .NET versions have more features and may appeal to the masses, but VB6 suits me just fine. Delphi is PASCAL and can be intimidating at first sight, but, it is superior in terms of its abilities (IMHO)

If I had to choose today, VB6 still will be my first choice followed by any of the scripting tools which make you wonder if even VB6 is even necessary. Here I talk about things like autoit3 and FBSL Free basic scripting language. Both work with windows and generate very tiny code that works just like a normal application.

Good luck with your quest