Sleep is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file

Sleep' is not recognized as internal command

'sleep' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file. 'wait' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

C:\Users\Pyprohly>sleep 'sleep' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

Fix ‘CMD command is not recognized’ errors. If you’re trying to run a CMD command and are seeing ‘CMD is not recognized as an internal or external command’, that could be something different. Trying the above fix may work but the issue may be being caused by a couple of registry entries that are interrupting the normal chain of commands.

The second possible reason the “not recognized as an internal or external command” occurs is that you don’t have the appropriate program installed on your computer. It may be that the installer didn’t install the application files at the appropriate location, or the installer didn’t enable the tool to be launched with Command Prompt.

Batch file loop with delay

There are three main commands you can use to delay a batch file: PAUSE — Causes the batch file to pause until a standard key (e.g., the spacebar) is pressed. TIMEOUT — Prompts the batch file to wait for a specified number of seconds (or a key press) before proceeding.

For the above batch file to run properly, you must have the sleep MS-DOS utility on the computer. This utility is not included with any version of MS-DOS or Windows. However, once downloaded allows your computer to sleep or delay for any specified amount of seconds. See the utility downloads page for a download link.

You can use the goto command in a batch file to "branch" the execution of your script, skipping to another section of the program. If you skip to a later part of the program, you can bypass lines of the script. If you skip to a previous part of the program, you can create a simple loop.

In a correct solution, each loop must calculate the number of seconds to pause after it's finished executing the loop's workload, by subtracting the current time from the Desired Loop Endtime. At the beginning of each loop, the desired loop duration (10 seconds or whatever) should be added to the previous Desired Loop Endtime.

Batch file for loop – looping through files. So far in for loop, we have used ‘%%’ followed by a single letter. But to loop through files using for loop, we have to use ‘%’ followed by a single letter like %y. So here is the syntax or perhaps an example of for loop for looping through files in particular location.

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The Sleep/Wait Command is a very useful command that is used to pause for a set amount of time while a batch script is being executed. To put it another way, this command makes it easier to run a command for a set amount of time.

Table of Contents

• 1 Using timeout to achieve sleep function
• 2 Using Ping to Delay to achieve sleep function
• 3 Using Ping to Delay with nonexisting IP
• 4 Using Ping to Delay in less than 1 second.
• 5 Using Powershell in Command to delay 
• 6 Using Powershell in Sleep Start Command to delay 
• 7 Using the Mshta command

You may find yourself in a situation where you want to run a series of command lines one after the other, but with a time delay between them. In this case, the sleep command will come in handy. This article will show you how to use the sleep command in Windows batch scripts.

📚 Note: Windows does not have a direct Sleep command as provided in Linux, we must use a different method to achieve the same result. Furthermore, no root privileges are required to implement in a batch script.

1 Using timeout to achieve sleep function

timeout is an old Windows command introduced in Windows 2000 that is used to add a delay between two tasks.

Usage :

timeout /t [/nobreak]

Here,

Example1: Basic timeout in Batch Script

@echo off
echo First Task Here ...
echo Approximately 10-second delay
timeout /t 10 
echo Second Task Here ...
pause

We have two tasks here, and we have inserted a timeout script that waits for 10 seconds for the First Task to complete before starting the Second Task.

Drawback: This will show unnecessary "Waiting for 0 seconds, press a key to continue..." and when you press any key it will continue to the next task. It is a good way of letting the user know the safe escape route to skip sleep.

Example2: Timeout with only CTRL + C key to Skip

@echo off
 .....
timeout /t 10 /nobreak
.....
pause

Here, /nobreak does not allow to break or skip sleep with any key. But pressing the CTRL + C key combination will force to close the batch processing and close the program immediately.

Example 3: Sleep without timeout message

@echo off
....
timeout /t 15 /nobreak > nul
....
pause

Appending >nul part so that command does not display output anything to screen. It suppresses the countdown time.

Another best use case of the timeout is as follows:

calc && timeout 5 && notepad

This will open the calculator, then wait 5 seconds before opening the notepad. Remember to include and && between each block. You can continue to cascade it like shown below

calc && timeout 3 && notepad && timeout 4 && regedit

This will open the calculator, then wait 3 seconds for the notepad to open, then wait 4 seconds for the registry editor to open.

Note that: Ctrl + C will break the whole program.

Drawbacks of TIMEOUT 

Here are some drawbacks of timeout :

• Cannot perform delay in a fraction of a second. ie. like timeout /t 0.5 does not work. And will give
  an error message stating "Error: Invalid value for timeout (/T) specified. The valid range is -1 to 99999)
• Cannot use a second value greater than 99999

2 Using Ping to Delay to achieve sleep function

@echo off
.....
ping localhost -n 10 > nul
.....
pause

Ping is actually used to determine whether or not a resource responds to a request. Ping sends a request to the resource and waits one second for a response. As a result, it is useful to use it as a delay function. Even if it waits for one second, it may receive a response in a few milliseconds. However, as soon as you ping the last packet here in the tenth request, it will automatically stop.

The resource we are pinging here is localhost, which is a local loopback, and it responds instantly within a millisecond but must wait 1 second each. And here in the example, we are waiting for nearly 10 seconds before executing the next line.

Note that: Ctrl + C will break the delay.

3 Using Ping to Delay with nonexisting IP

@echo off
....
ping 192.4.4.4 -n 1 -w 10000 > nul
....
pause

Here waiting for 10 seconds. Here we must ping to a non-existing IP address and if it exists it will not work. -w indicates waiting and here it waits for 10000 ms, you can change this value. And by default ping will request 4 times to the resource. Here, -n 1 indicates request only 1 time.

4 Using Ping to Delay in less than 1 second.

Just replace 10000ms with anything smaller than 1000ms. like 500ms as shown below

ping 192.4.4.4 -n 1 -w 500 > nul

5 Using Powershell in Command to delay 

Simply follow the simple example below if you want to use Powershell commands from the command line:

Example 1

powershell -command "Please Wait for 5 second" -s 5

type this command in the command line or batch file. This command will hold the screen for 5 seconds. You can change it from 5 to any number. This can be useful if a Windows command fails or has an issue.

Example 2:

powershell -nop -c "& {sleep -m 5}"

6 Using Powershell in Sleep Start Command to delay 

Alternatively, you can sleep-start command of Powershell in CMD as below:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "Start-Sleep -Seconds 5"

The above command will wait for 5 seconds. Note that: Method 5 is a short form of method 6

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "Start-Sleep -MilliSeconds 500"

The above command will wait for 500 milliseconds.

7 Using the Mshta command

Mshta.exe is a native Windows binary that was developed specifically for the purpose of executing Microsoft HTML Application (HTA) files.Mshta is able to run code written in Windows Script Host (VBScript and JScript) that is embedded into HTML in a manner that is aware of network proxies.

start "" /w /b /min mshta "javascript:setTimeout(function(){close();},5000);"

FAQ:

What is the WaitFor command?

Waitfor.exe is a small utility that is included with Windows 7 and later versions. This program is designed to listen for and respond to a named signal. Visit here for more info.

Is there a command in Windows that allows you to sleep and wait?

There is no sleep and wait for command in the windows version. The best alternative is the Timeout command as explained above. In Linux, you can simply use: sleep n in the terminal where n is time in seconds.

How to sleep for five seconds in a batch file?

A simple way to do this in a batch file before and after the task you want to sleep or hold is as follows:

timeout /t 5 /nobreak >nul

How do I make a batch file sleep?

What is sleep command in CMD?

How do I put sleep in a bash script?

How do you delay in CMD?