At an architectural level, the .NET libs are superior to current java libs. This is in part due to that a lot of the success .NET has experienced is because they've manged to learn from the mistakes that were made in some Java libs. Also, when it comes to pushing out new features to the .NET stack, Microsoft is the supreme force and this creates a very noticeable efficiency difference between the two. Java updates often take long and lag behind .NET because of their design by committee nature.
In my opinion (as someone who knows both worlds and learned Java after C#), MSDN absolutely makes life easier for a total newbie and often this is the difference when a newbie wants to pic between these two platforms.