How do I make a batch file wait / sleep for some seconds?

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Chapters
00:00 Question
00:40 Accepted answer (Score 33)
01:08 Answer 2 (Score 147)
01:44 Answer 3 (Score 10)
01:53 Answer 4 (Score 7)
02:13 Thank you

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Full question
https://superuser.com/questions/48231/ho...

Accepted answer links:
[Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit]: http://www.microsoft.com/Downloads/detai...

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Content licensed under CC BY-SA
https://meta.stackexchange.com/help/lice...

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Tags
#windows7 #windows #batch #sleep

#avk47

ANSWER 1

Score 163

You can use the timeout command:

This utility accepts a timeout parameter to wait for the specified time period (in seconds) or until any key is pressed. It also accepts a parameter to ignore the key press.

For example, to wait for 10 seconds:

TIMEOUT /T 10

For more details:

TIMEOUT /?

ACCEPTED ANSWER

Score 34

There are many sleep utilities you can download and drop into your System32 folder, one is provided with the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit called sleep.exe.

You can also use the ping trick:

:sleep
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 2 -w 1000 > NUL
ping 127.0.0.1 -n %1 -w 1000 > NUL

then from somewhere in your batch file, you can call it like so:

CALL :sleep 1

ANSWER 3

Score 11

timeout /t <seconds> /nobreak > NUL

ANSWER 4

Score 2

sleep.exe is included in the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools.

You may use:

sleep /?
sleep seconds
sleep -m milliseconds