METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR A NETWORKED IMAGING SYSTEM

An image forming system includes a server and client computers connected to a network, one or a plurality of image forming devices connected to either the network or the server, and devices of which one or a plurality can be connected to the server and which can be recognized by the server. The system holds the number of image forming devices set as output destinations, recognizes the presence of connected devices and the number thereof connected, and compares the number N of devices connected to the server that have been recognized and the number M of image forming devices already set as output destinations at the time of setting the image forming devices as output destinations. Thus, unauthorized use of image processing software operating on image forming devices for generating image data to be supplied to image forming devices, can be prevented.