Since your question is really several questions, I'll divide my answer into parts

. Unfortunately I'm sitting on my windows laptop now, so I can't generate any sc

reenshots or even test the programs and see where all the options are - if there
's something you can't find, don't hesitate to ask.
1. How do you remove Windows from a dual-boot configuration without having to go
through another Ubuntu installation?
When you installed Ubuntu alongside Windows, the installer created (at least) on
e new partition on your hard drive, on which Ubuntu was installed. Windows usual
ly occupies two partitions (one for the boot loader and one for C:\), so that wo
uld mean you now have three.
If you, when you start Windows, have any files you want to save on C:\, you need
to back them up before you continue. One way to do that would be to simply copy
them to the Ubuntu partition, which can be done by following these steps:
1. Boot your computer into Ubuntu
2. Open Nautilus (the file browser, equivalent of Explorer in WinXP) and find yo
ur Windows partition in the device list on the left. Click the device.
3. Find your files on that partition, and copy them to somewhere you can find th
em. If you put them in ~username/backup they won't be in anyones way.
Next, you want to remove the Windows partition entirely, in order to free the sp
ace so Ubuntu can use it. This most easily done with GParted.
1. If you don't have GParted installed, install it by opening a terminal and ent
ering
sudo apt-get install gparted
2. Open GParted by typing gksu gparted &
3. In GParted, locate the Windows partition, select it, delete it and click Appl
y. Warning! After you do this, the data on your Windows partition is lost foreve
r!
4. Mark the empty space, find "Create new partition" somewhere and choose an app
ropriate name ("Data", for example). If you intend to only use Ubuntu in the fut
ure, you can format the drive as ext4 - but if you may want to move back to Wind
ows you should probably choose NTFS so Windows can use that partition. NTFS work
s almost as well as ext4 under Ubuntu, but there are a few quirks - for example,
Google Chrome (and Chromium) cannot download files to an NTFS drive.
5. Open "Storage Disk Manager" (for example by searching for it in the Unity sea
rch box). Click the partition you just created (you might have to look around fo
r a while and click several of the /dev/sdaX options...) and configure it to mou
nt on startup. Note the mount point that is shown - this is where on the Ubuntu
file system you will access the files on the partition from now on.
Instead of creating a new partition and mounting it, you could also start from a
Live CD/USB and expand the Ubuntu partition. However, I would strongly recommen
d having a separate partition for stuff you want to keep regardless of OS versio
n. My reasons for this will become apparent in the next part of this answer...
2. Are the Ubuntu updates safe to take?
If, by "Ubuntu updates", you mean the updates provided by the package management
system every now and then, then yes, they are safe and stable. However, the upg
rade process between Ubuntu versions (for example from Ubuntu 11.04 to 11.10) is
not always as stable, and it is usually recommended to install the new version
from scratch instead of upgrading. (A fresh install is also usually a lot faster
...)
Because this is so, it is often useful to have separate disk partitions for stuf
f you want to keep between upgrades. On my Ubuntu machine I have separate partit
ions for /home, /boot, and /data - and that has saved me many times when I screw
ed up some weird configuration file and had to reinstall Ubuntu to fix it.
3. Is there any such thing as a restore points in Ubuntu?
No, there is not. Therefore, it is extremely important that you take care and ba
ckup any sensitive data that you do not want to lose before you alter your syste
m.