US Patent 7600052 Peripheral device control method, control program, and apparatus therefor

This invention allows an application to set/modify an extension function without opening the user interface of a device driver in an environment in which the function extension of the device driver is implemented in a plugin form. To cause the application to execute printing processing using a printer driver as one of the device drivers and a function extension module having a parameter which cannot be set by the printer driver, the application reserves a memory area having a capacity including a parameter managed by the printer driver and a parameter managed by the function extension module. The application transfers at least the position of the memory area, an identifier for specifying a parameter, and the setting value of the parameter to the printer driver or function extension module to set the setting value in the parameter specified by the identifier of the memory area. The printer driver and function extension module perform printing processing using the parameter of the memory area.