Patent ID: 7305456

Claim:
A device information acquiring method for acquiring device information related to devices from a Web site provided by a server apparatus via one or a plurality of networks, comprising the steps of: (a) checking an environment of a client terminal from which the Web site is accessed, including at least one device usable by the client terminal, and sending environment information indicative of the environment to the server apparatus; (b) downloading device information of said at least one device, from the server apparatus to the client terminal, by a server execution program executed by the server apparatus, based on the environment information received from the client terminal; and (c) installing the downloaded device information in the client terminal, wherein said step (a) includes receiving a client execution program which is independent of an operating system of the client terminal, and an arbitrary program which is dependent of said operating system, that are downloaded together from the server apparatus to the client terminal in response to a request from the client terminal, and checking the environment of the client terminal by said client execution program via said arbitrary program.