Patent ID: 7355739

Claim:
An image forming device which includes an operating system to execute any of a plurality of programs, comprising: a rewritable memory having a virtual memory area managed by the operating system and an image memory area used to store image data, a capacity of the virtual memory area and the image memory area being determined by setting information; and a memory assignment unit assigning one of the virtual memory area or the image memory area of the rewritable memory for execution of a program of the plurality of programs upon starting up of the image forming device, based on the capacity of the virtual memory area and the image memory area determined by the setting information and a size of the program for execution, wherein the setting information is variable and derived from a setting file stored in a memory that stores information when power is not supplied, and wherein, when an available capacity of the virtual memory area of the rewritable memory is less than the size of the program for execution, the image memory area is determined as being a destination of the program when transferred to the rewritable memory.