I know very little about computers or operating systems other than how to operate one.
An old friend installed Ubuntu on my laptop and we are no longer friends. I do not use it.
When I boot the computer, I have to choose which system I want to use and if I do not choose quickly enough, it opens Ubuntu.
Can someone please assist me in removing Ubuntu from my laptop?
I've read a little in the forums but do not understand much of the lingo. I would appreciate any assistance you can offer.
Thanks in advance.

Do you know how it was installed? Did your former friend use a program called wubi? Or was the hard drive partitioned?
If it was with wubi then it can be removed via the add remove programs in the control panel, assuming of course that the primary operating system on your computer is Windows.
Here is a link to the wubi wiki:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/WubiGuide
Instructions for removing it are there.
If this is not how ubuntu is installed, let us know.
Cheers

You need the windows installation media to rebuild your boot loader if you remove Ubuntu. This is because the boot loader will look for the two operating system at booting time but failing to find one of them it will report error and it wont let you pass that stage. So if you remove ubuntu by deleting the partition that host that OS you will need to quickly boot from the windows CD or DVD and re instage the boot loader.

Having Ubuntu in your hard drive is not a bad thing though. You can just leave it there and use it in case your windows become corrupt or slow as result of malware or viruses, you can clean your windows installation from the Ubuntu partition.
Ubuntu is very safe, secure and easy to use for everyday computer things so really I would just suggest you to use it more.

Good luck to you!

i would boot the pc using a live-usb and use gparted to delete the unwanted partition (being very cautious not to delete the ms-vista partition). then i would boot to the dos prompt and issue a: