timeout equivalent for windows

I mean there is timeout.exe but I don't think that gives you quite the same functionality that you are looking for.

I am not aware of a timeout equivalent for Windows. Following the suggestion in the linked answer PowerShell jobs would be a suggestion on how to replicate timeouts behavior. I rolled a simple sample function

function timeout{
    param(
        [int]$Seconds,
        [scriptblock]$Scriptblock,
        [string[]]$Arguments
    )

    # Get a time stamp of before we run the job
    $now = Get-Date 

    # Execute the scriptblock as a job
    $theJob = Start-Job -Name Timeout -ScriptBlock $Scriptblock -ArgumentList $Arguments

    while($theJob.State -eq "Running"){
        # Display any output gathered so far. 
        $theJob | Receive-Job

        # Check if we have exceeded the timeout.
        if(((Get-Date) - $now).TotalSeconds -gt $Seconds){
            Write-Warning "Task has exceeded it allotted running time of $Seconds second(s)."
            Remove-Job -Job $theJob -Force
        }
    }

    # Job has completed natually
    $theJob | Remove-Job -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
}

This starts a job and keeps checking for its output. So you should get near live updates of the running process. You do not have to use -ScriptBlock and could opt for -Command based jobs. I will show an example using the above function and a script block.

timeout 5 {param($e,$o)1..10|ForEach-Object{if($_%2){"$_`: $e"}else{"$_`: $o"};sleep -Seconds 1}} "OdD","eVeN"

This will print the numbers 1 to 10 as well as the numbers evenness. Between displaying a number there will be a pause of 1 second. If the timeout is reached a warning is displayed. In the above example all 10 number will not be displayed since the process was only allowed 5 seconds.

Function could use some touching up and likely there is someone out there that might have done this already. My take on it at least.

Based on @Matt answer, below is a function which actually behaves like linux's timeout. But this one works for external executables, not for powershell scripts and commandlets.

E.g., when running timeout 10 blabla.exe a b c --d, blabla.exe will recieve 4 args and will have 10 seconds to process them before pwsh will interrupt and return.

function Start-TimeoutCommand ($Seconds) {
    $now = Get-Date
    $global:lastJobStatus = 'running'
    $application = $args[0]
    $arguments = $args[1..$args.count]
    $job = Start-Job {
        param($Application, $Arguments)
        #Write-Host -foreg yellow $Application $Arguments
        & $Application @Arguments
    } -ArgumentList $Application, $Arguments
    
    do {
        Start-Sleep -Milliseconds 500
        
        # Display any output gathered so far
        $job | Receive-Job
        
        # Check if we have exceeded the timeout
        if (((Get-Date) - $now).TotalSeconds -gt $Seconds) {
            Write-Warning "Task has exceeded allowed running time of $Seconds second(s)."
            $global:lastJobStatus = 'interrupted'
            $job | Stop-Job
            $job | Remove-Job -Force
            return
        }
    } while ($job.State -eq "Running")
    
    # Get any final output
    $job | Receive-Job
    
    # Job has completed naturally
    $job | Remove-Job -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
    $global:lastJobStatus = 'finished'
}

Set-Alias -Name timeout -Value Start-TimeoutCommand

Assuming you have the the Threadjob module. Run the job in a background thread, and then sleep a certain time and then forcibly receive the job. I couldn't do "receive-job -force -autoremove" without -wait, which I didn't want. The first job takes too long, and there's no output. The second job completes within the timeout.

$timeout = 5
$script = { sleep $using:joblength; "joblength $using:joblength done" }

$joblength = 10
$job = start-threadjob $script
sleep $timeout
stop-job $job
receive-job $job
remove-job $job

$joblength = 1
$job = start-threadjob $script
sleep $timeout
stop-job $job
receive-job $job
remove-job $job

Output:

joblength 1 done