Patent ID: 8218169

Claim:
An information processing apparatus connected to a plurality of peripheral apparatuses and having a plurality of device drivers installed therein for generating respective output jobs, each output job to be output to at least one of the peripheral apparatuses, the information processing apparatus comprising: a first port monitor that, for each of the plurality of device drivers, is preset to monitor a port as an output destination of the corresponding device driver, receives the corresponding output job generated by the corresponding device driver, and delivers the corresponding output job to at least one of the peripheral apparatuses, wherein the respective ports monitored by said first port monitor for each of the plurality of device drivers are set in advance by an operation system installed in the information processing apparatus or are LPR ports; a second port monitor that, for each of the plurality of device drivers, receives the corresponding output job generated by the corresponding device driver and delivers the corresponding output job to at least one of the peripheral apparatuses, said second port monitor collecting job information including setting information on each of the output jobs; a selection device that allows selection of device drivers for which the respective port as the output destination thereof is to be switched, the selection occurring from the plurality of device drivers installed in the information processing apparatus; and a switching device that is operable when a system, which is for accounting the output jobs by using the job information collected by said second port monitor, is constructed, to switch the port set correspondingly to each of the plurality of device drivers selected via the selection device from the port monitored by the first port monitor to a port monitored by said second port monitor, wherein said second port monitor, which is different from said first port monitor, is dedicated to the system, and wherein said switching device is operable to switch the respective ports for the plurality of the device drivers synchronously.