Patent ID: 8860982

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: a storage unit configured to store a link table; an installation processing unit configured to (i) register in the link table first link data indicating a correspondence between an application identifier of an application program and a first data identifier of application data, and (ii) register in the link table, when additionally installing other application data for the application program into the storage unit after the application program and the application data are installed into the storage unit, second link data indicating a correspondence between the application identifier of the application program and a second data identifier of the other application data; and a relay unit configured to refer to the link table and search for the other application data for the application program when the application program is executed, wherein, when the application data and the other application data are stored in the storage unit as different files, the installation processing unit is further configured to add a file pointer to the application data in the second link data, and the relay unit is further configured to search the other application data for the file pointer to the application data, and wherein the installation processing unit is further configured to add at least a date and time of installation or version information of the other application data in the second link data, and the relay unit is further configured to search for the other application data using the application identifier as a primary key and at least the date and time of installation or the version information as secondary keys.