Commands like timeout.exe were added to Windows to make waiting in a batch file easier. Unfortunately timeout.exe still leaves much to be desired. There are several alternatives people use to simulate a delay in the Windows Command Prompt (cmd.exe).
Below you can see an analysis of the suggestions from this StackOverflow post, along with one additional suggestion I have that will increase precision (method 1 below).
The key factors I’m analyzing is the time precision of a command and I attempt to determine the compatibility with past versions of Windows. I also want this to work out-of-the-box with Windows and not require an external executable to be loaded.
My test consisted of the following methods:
- Method 1: Custom Function
Command: call :waitfor 5000>nul (see below for implementation details)
- Method 2: Ping.exe (dummy IP, timeout)
Command: ping.exe -n 1 -w 5000 1.1.1.1 >nul 2>&1
- Method 3: Ping.exe (localhost, 1 sec between pings)
Command: ping.exe -n 6 -w 1 127.0.0.1 >nul 2>&1
- Method 4: Powershell.exe
Command: powershell.exe -command "Start-Sleep -Milliseconds 5000">nul
- Method 5: Timeout.exe
Command: timeout.exe /t 5 /nobreak >nul 2>&1
- Method 6: VBScript (cscript.exe)
Command: echo WScript.Sleep^(WScript.Arguments^(0^)^) >"%temp%sleep.vbs" && cscript "%temp%sleep.vbs" 5000 >nul
Continue reading “Waiting (or “sleeping”) in a batch file”
