Can Powershell Run Commands in Parallel?

There's so many answers to this these days:

1. jobs (or threadjobs in PS 6/7 or the module for PS 5)
2. start-process
3. workflows (PS 5 only)
4. powershell api with another runspace
5. invoke-command with multiple computers, which can all be localhost (have to be admin)
6. multiple session (runspace) tabs in the ISE, or remote powershell ISE tabs
7. Powershell 7 has a foreach-object -parallel as an alternative for #4

Using start-threadjob in powershell 5.1. I wish this worked like I expect, but it doesn't:

# test-netconnection has a miserably long timeout
echo yahoo.com facebook.com | 
  start-threadjob { test-netconnection $input } | receive-job -wait -auto

WARNING: Name resolution of yahoo.com microsoft.com facebook.com failed

It works this way. Not quite as nice and foreach-object -parallel in powershell 7 but it'll do.

echo yahoo.com facebook.com | 
  % { $_ | start-threadjob { test-netconnection $input } } | 
  receive-job -wait -auto | ft -a

ComputerName RemotePort RemoteAddress PingSucceeded PingReplyDetails (RTT) TcpTestS
                                                                           ucceeded
------------ ---------- ------------- ------------- ---------------------- --------
facebook.com 0          31.13.71.36   True          17 ms                  False
yahoo.com    0          98.137.11.163 True          97 ms                  False

Here's workflows with literally a foreach -parallel:

workflow work {
  foreach -parallel ($i in 1..3) { 
    sleep 5 
    "$i done" 
  }
}

work

3 done
1 done
2 done

Or a workflow with a parallel block:

function sleepfor($time) { sleep $time; "sleepfor $time done"}

workflow work {
  parallel {
    sleepfor 3
    sleepfor 2
    sleepfor 1
  }
  'hi'
}
    
work 

sleepfor 1 done
sleepfor 2 done
sleepfor 3 done
hi

Here's an api with runspaces example:

$a =  [PowerShell]::Create().AddScript{sleep 5;'a done'}
$b =  [PowerShell]::Create().AddScript{sleep 5;'b done'}
$c =  [PowerShell]::Create().AddScript{sleep 5;'c done'}
$r1,$r2,$r3 = ($a,$b,$c).begininvoke() # run in background
$a.EndInvoke($r1); $b.EndInvoke($r2); $c.EndInvoke($r3) # wait
($a,$b,$c).streams.error # check for errors
($a,$b,$c).dispose() # clean

a done
b done
c done

In Powershell 7 you can use ForEach-Object -Parallel

$Message = "Output:"
Get-ChildItem $dir | ForEach-Object -Parallel {
    "$using:Message $_"
} -ThrottleLimit 4

To complete previous answers, you can also use Wait-Job to wait for all jobs to complete:

For ($i=1; $i -le 3; $i++) {
    $ScriptBlock = {
        Param (
            [string] [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)] $increment
        )

        Write-Host $increment
    }

    Start-Job $ScriptBlock -ArgumentList $i
}

Get-Job | Wait-Job | Receive-Job

If you're using latest cross platform powershell (which you should btw) https://github.com/powershell/powershell#get-powershell, you can add single & to run parallel scripts. (Use ; to run sequentially)

In my case I needed to run 2 npm scripts in parallel: npm run hotReload & npm run dev

You can also setup npm to use powershell for its scripts (by default it uses cmd on windows).

Run from project root folder: npm config set script-shell pwsh --userconfig ./.npmrc and then use single npm script command: npm run start

"start":"npm run hotReload & npm run dev"

This has been answered thoroughly. Just want to post this method i have created based on Powershell-Jobs as a reference.

Jobs are passed on as a list of script-blocks. They can be parameterized. Output of the jobs is color-coded and prefixed with a job-index (just like in a vs-build-process, as this will be used in a build) Can be used to startup multiple servers at a time or running build steps in parallel or so..

function Start-Parallel {
    param(
        [ScriptBlock[]]
        [Parameter(Position = 0)]
        $ScriptBlock,

        [Object[]]
        [Alias("arguments")]
        $parameters
    )

    $jobs = $ScriptBlock | ForEach-Object { Start-Job -ScriptBlock $_ -ArgumentList $parameters }
    $colors = "Blue", "Red", "Cyan", "Green", "Magenta"
    $colorCount = $colors.Length

    try {
        while (($jobs | Where-Object { $_.State -ieq "running" } | Measure-Object).Count -gt 0) {
            $jobs | ForEach-Object { $i = 1 } {
                $fgColor = $colors[($i - 1) % $colorCount]
                $out = $_ | Receive-Job
                $out = $out -split [System.Environment]::NewLine
                $out | ForEach-Object {
                    Write-Host "$i> "-NoNewline -ForegroundColor $fgColor
                    Write-Host $_
                }
                
                $i++
            }
        }
    } finally {
        Write-Host "Stopping Parallel Jobs ..." -NoNewline
        $jobs | Stop-Job
        $jobs | Remove-Job -Force
        Write-Host " done."
    }
}

sample output:

There is a new built-in solution in PowerShell 7.0 Preview 3. PowerShell ForEach-Object Parallel Feature

So you could do:

Get-ChildItem $dir | ForEach-Object -Parallel {

.. Do Work
 $_ # this will be your file

}-ThrottleLimit 4