[multithreading] Can Powershell Run Commands in Parallel?

I have a powershell script to do some batch processing on a bunch of images and I'd like to do some parallel processing. Powershell seems to have some background processing options such as start-job, wait-job, etc, but the only good resource I found for doing parallel work was writing the text of a script out and running those (PowerShell Multithreading)

Ideally, I'd like something akin to parallel foreach in .net 4.

Something pretty seemless like:

foreach-parallel -threads 4 ($file in (Get-ChildItem $dir))
{
   .. Do Work
}

Maybe I'd be better off just dropping down to c#...

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"

The answer from Steve Townsend is correct in theory but not in practice as @likwid pointed out. My revised code takes into account the job-context barrier--nothing crosses that barrier by default! The automatic $_ variable can thus be used in the loop but cannot be used directly within the script block because it is inside a separate context created by the job.

To pass variables from the parent context to the child context, use the -ArgumentList parameter on Start-Job to send it and use param inside the script block to receive it.

cls
# Send in two root directory names, one that exists and one that does not.
# Should then get a "True" and a "False" result out the end.
"temp", "foo" | %{

  $ScriptBlock = {
    # accept the loop variable across the job-context barrier
    param($name) 
    # Show the loop variable has made it through!
    Write-Host "[processing '$name' inside the job]"
    # Execute a command
    Test-Path "\$name"
    # Just wait for a bit...
    Start-Sleep 5
  }

  # Show the loop variable here is correct
  Write-Host "processing $_..."

  # pass the loop variable across the job-context barrier
  Start-Job $ScriptBlock -ArgumentList $_
}

# Wait for all to complete
While (Get-Job -State "Running") { Start-Sleep 2 }

# Display output from all jobs
Get-Job | Receive-Job

# Cleanup
Remove-Job *

(I generally like to provide a reference to the PowerShell documentation as supporting evidence but, alas, my search has been fruitless. If you happen to know where context separation is documented, post a comment here to let me know!)

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:

In Powershell 7 you can use ForEach-Object -Parallel

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

Backgrounds jobs are expensive to setup and are not reusable. PowerShell MVP Oisin Grehan has a good example of PowerShell multi-threading.

(10/25/2010 site is down, but accessible via the Web Archive).

I'e used adapted Oisin script for use in a data loading routine here:

http://rsdd.codeplex.com/SourceControl/changeset/view/a6cd657ea2be#Invoke-RSDDThreaded.ps1

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

There's so many answers to this these days:

1. jobs (or threadjobs in PS 6/7 or the module)
2. start-process
3. workflows
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

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

http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/Invoke-Async-Allows-you-to-83b0c9f0

i created an invoke-async which allows you do run multiple script blocks/cmdlets/functions at the same time. this is great for small jobs (subnet scan or wmi query against 100's of machines) because the overhead for creating a runspace vs the startup time of start-job is pretty drastic. It can be used like so.

with scriptblock,

$sb = [scriptblock] {param($system) gwmi win32_operatingsystem -ComputerName $system | select csname,caption} 

$servers = Get-Content servers.txt 

$rtn = Invoke-Async -Set $server -SetParam system  -ScriptBlock $sb

just cmdlet/function

$servers = Get-Content servers.txt 

$rtn = Invoke-Async -Set $servers -SetParam computername -Params @{count=1} -Cmdlet Test-Connection -ThreadCount 50