You NEED more than a total of 1 gig of ram for Vista and Maya to run at the same time without experiencing issues.
(per the Autodesk support sub.)
What version of Maya are you running?
I ask because if you are running 8.5, the SP1 download from Autodesk fixed a TON of nCloth issues.
Let us know
Israel "Izzy" Long
Motion and Title Design for Broadcast-Film-DS
izzylong.com