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When I'm writing a batch file to run automatically, how do I write it so that when the batch file is run, it can pause for a couple seconds in between commands?
Context:
psexec \\server -u user -p pass cmd
[there needs to be a pause here for psexec to establish a connection]
dir /s >output.txt \\server\shared
*Note: the reason I run the dir command server-side using psexec and not locally is because it's much faster to run dir on a local machine than remotely, and time is of the essence.
When I'm doing this by hand it's obviously easy, I just wait. But running a batch file makes it run all commands at near instant speeds next to each other, regardless of the completion status of the last command. How do I put in a pause?
703
The correct way to sleep in a batch file is to use the timeout command, introduced in Windows 2000.
The “sleep” command is used to add delay in some processes but unfortunately sleep or delay commands do not support windows operating systems. In the Windows operating system, we can utilize the “timeout” command that can delay the execution of commands for some seconds or for a specified time.
Delay execution for a few seconds or minutes, for use within a batch file. Syntax TIMEOUT delay [/nobreak] Key delay Delay in seconds (between -1 and 100000) to wait before continuing. The value -1 causes the computer to wait indefinitely for a keystroke (like the PAUSE command) /nobreak Ignore user key strokes.
On Windows Vista / Windows 7 you can use the timeout command:
timeout /T [delay in seconds] /NOBREAK > NUL
On previous versions of Windows, you can use the ping command (the ping command has 1000 ms of delay between each iteration):
ping -n [delay in seconds + 1] 127.0.0.1 > NUL
Some versions of Windows (like Windows Server 2003) has the sleep.exe executable:
sleep [delay in seconds]
Note: Windows Resource kit for 2003 contains sleep.exe command.
If you don't know the Windows version, simply use the ping hack since it'll be available.
187
There is timeout command in more recent version of Windows:
timeout /T 10
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