OutOfMemoryException when allocation large memory blocks

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WinXP

C#

Windows

Dear Softwaredevelopers,

In my application I have to allocate a huge amount of memory but the following C# console programm creates an OutOfMemoryException when I try to allocate memory >512 MB. and I wonder why.

My System:
Intel Core2 Quad CPU 3GB
Windows XP 32-Bit
Visual Studio 2008
available free memory 2.3GB

Can anybody help?

Greetings Christian

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;

namespace MemoryAllocation
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
int size = 2;

while (size > 0)
{
Byte[] b = new Byte[size];

for (int i = 0; i<size; ++i)
b[i] = 13;
size *= 2;
}

}
}
}