Patent ID: 6948059

Claim:
A method of adding a component into a multi-component electronic device, the multi-component electronic device providing a set of shared resources having types and version numbers, the method comprising the steps of: (a) determining a required shared resource list of types and version numbers of shared resources required by the component and other components of the multi-component electronic device; (b) attaching to the component a link to the required shared resource list; (c) executing a loader program upon installation of the component to compare the required shared resource list with the set of shared resources provided by the multi-component electronic device; (i) when the entire required shared resource list, including the types and version numbers, match the set of shared resources provided by the multi-component electronic device, adding the component to the multi-component electronic device; and (ii) when less than the entire required shared resource list, including the types and version numbers, match the set of shared resources provided by the multi-component electronic device, determining the types and version numbers of the missing shared resources and searching for the missing shared resources according to a predefined search strategy; and installing the missing shared resources on the multi-component electronic device; further including the step of: (iii) when a missing shared resource found in the search strategy is a shared resource having a type but not a version identical with a corresponding shared resource in the set of shared resources, adding the missing shared resource to the multi-component electronic device without removing the original corresponding shared resource, thus treating the resource as two distinct files even if they have the same name, wherein the corresponding shared resource is in a common directory to be usable components other than the component and the new shared resource is placed in a directory different from the directory of the corresponding shared resource and usable by the component.