You are right. There is not much difference to the casual observer. Everything
works the same except that hibernation does not work. Wubi can be uninstalled
from the control panel in Windows. It uses the Linux file system so that you do
not have to worry about viruses, etc. It is so simple. What a great additional
option for dual booters. I have it installed on one of my spare computers. It
went ahead without problem.

I use it on my desktop with XP in case my linked old dedicated computer
with it on packs up.

Well I have not seen any reference to Ubuntu 8.2 yet, that cannot be
real, but the difference using 'wubi' is explained either on the disc or
on the Ubuntu website; mainly you do not need to partition the disk with
inherent risks that that always has. On my laptop it works a treat,
with an option to choose on first boot.