the todbot code above should work in dev-c++ since it uses termios for the serial port. Once you open() the port, it's easy to read() and write(). If you want to use conio, google turned up a few results of people modifying dev-c++ to use it.
If you want to use the windows libraries, you could download visual c++ express (for free). But i have no idea which windows libraries manage serial port communication.