In this article, I will focus on use To create and start a job on the local computer, use the Star-Job cmdlet. It takes a variable called the script block as<\/em> a parameter.<\/p>\n What is a scriptblock?<\/p>\n In PowerShell, a script block is a collection of statements or expressions that can be used as a single unit. The collection of instructions can be enclosed in braces ({}), defined as a function, or saved in a script file. A script block can return values and accept parameters and arguments.<\/p>\n The following command starts a background job that runs a As it runs in the background, The information about the job is automatically shown as the The result does not appear immediately when you run a background job, as it works in another context. To get the result, you need to use If we try to rerun That happens because, by default, To prevent that happening, use the This way, you can use receive-job multiple times without deleting the cached data.<\/p>\n You can also use the You may have jobs that take a long time to finish. Using the First, let’s run a job that will take a long time to finish.<\/p>\n Now, let\u00b4s get the job list and its status.<\/p>\n You can also use the As a result, the PowerShell prompt is suppressed until the job is completed.<\/p>\n To stop a background job, use the To delete a background job, use the Let\u00b4s remove all jobs.<\/p>\n I also used the -force parameter to stop the job from running.<\/p>\n Jobs can fail for many reasons. The job object contains a As the background job runs in another context, all the variables in the script are not visible in the job. We need to pass as We can do that, but we need to use another cmdlet I would use split-job instead of PowerShell jobs because unlike PowerShell jobs I can set the number of concurrency parallel runspaces and not bloating the queue o jobs. For instance, I would need a code to control the parallel jobs and the queue to not bloat the jobs queue. Using split-job I just need to pass the parameter You need to execute the When you set the You can also control the number of pipelines sent to the system by using the parameter If you need to pass functions, you can use function parameter<\/p>\n Then you can use it in the following code.<\/p>\n I did an example . a function that gets the computer from a specific AD group and uses the split-job to test if some services and processes are running.<\/p>\nBackgroundJobs<\/code>, but there are similarities to each, other then the context in which they are executed.<\/p>\nStarting a job on the local computer<\/h2>\n
Get-Service<\/code> cmdlet on the local computer.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/a-screenshot-of-a-computer-screen-description-aut.png\")
<\/p>\nstart-job<\/code> returns information about the job that was created, and you can continue your work in the session without interruption while the job runs.<\/p>\nID, Name<\/code> \u2013 if you don\u2019t name your job, it will create a name JobX<\/code>– and more information about the job.<\/p>\nGetting the result of a job<\/h2>\n
Receive-Job<\/code>. <\/em>As we saw in the start-job result, the job ID<\/code> is 7, so we can use this ID<\/code>.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/a-screen-shot-of-a-computer-description-automatic.png\")
<\/p>\nWorking with Receive-Job<\/h2>\n
Receive-Job<\/code>, it will not show anything.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/a-black-and-white-rectangle-description-automatic.png\")
<\/p>\nReceive-Job<\/code> details the results from the cache. When you run Receive-Job<\/code> again, you get only the new results after the first run.<\/p>\nKeep<\/code> parameter.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/word-image-105109-4.png\")
<\/p>\nWait<\/code> parameter of the Receive-Job<\/code> cmdlet. When using this parameter, the cmdlet does not return the command prompt until the job is completed and all results are available.<\/p>\nGetting a list of jobs<\/h2>\n
Get-Job<\/code> cmdlet, you can get a list of the jobs running or completed.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/a-screen-shot-of-a-computer-description-automatic-1.png\")
<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/word-image-105109-6.png\")
<\/p>\nWait-Job<\/code> cmdlet to wait for any or all the job results. Wait-Job<\/code> lets you wait for one or more specific jobs or for all jobs.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/a-screenshot-of-a-computer-screen-description-aut-1.png\")
<\/p>\nStopping a Job<\/h2>\n
Stop-Job<\/code> cmdlet. Let’s stop the job that is running.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/a-screenshot-of-a-computer-screen-description-aut-2.png\")
<\/p>\nDeleting a Job<\/h2>\n
Remove-Job<\/code> cmdlet.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/a-screenshot-of-a-computer-screen-description-aut-3.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/a-black-and-white-rectangle-description-automatic-1.png\")
<\/p>\nWhy did my job fail?<\/h2>\n
Reason<\/code> property that will provide you with information about the cause of the failure. First, let’s store in a variable $job<\/code> the result of the start-job<\/code> with a failed option because I increased the time of the start-sleep<\/code> parameter to more than int32<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/a-computer-screen-shot-of-a-black-screen-descript.png\")
<\/p>\nSending values to a job<\/h2>\n
Argumentlist<\/code> parameter and in the script block add param($variable)<\/code>.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/a-screenshot-of-a-computer-description-automatica-7.png\")
<\/p>\nBeing notified when a job finishes<\/h2>\n
register-objectevent<\/code>. W<\/em>e will detect the change at the start of the job<\/p>\n$job = start-job -ScriptBlock {param($seconds) Start-Sleep $seconds} -ArgumentList 10\nRegister-ObjectEvent -InputObject $job -EventName StateChanged -MessageData $job.Id -SourceIdentifier Job.Monitor -Action {\n $Global:t = $event\n Write-Host (\"Job ID {0} has changed from {1} to {2}\" -f $t.sender.id,$t.SourceEventArgs.PreviousJobStateInfo.State,$t.SourceEventArgs.JobStateInfo.state) -ForegroundColor Green -BackgroundColor Black\n }<\/pre>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/a-computer-screen-with-text-on-it-description-aut.png\")
<\/p>\nUsing split-job<\/h2>\n
Split-job<\/code> is a community function that works with runspaces<\/a>, and IMHO is the best way to run your PowerShell code asynchronously with runspaces. The original can be found here<\/a>, but I made some changes and customized it. You can download that code in a .zip file here from the Simple Talk site<\/a>.<\/p>\n-maxpipelines<\/code> that will say to me how any concurrency parallel jobs I want per time. Another point, as PowerShell jobs, it uses runspaces but explicitly in the code and not a black box like PowerShell hobs<\/p>\nsplit-job<\/code> cmdlet before the main foreach-object that runs the process. For instance,<\/p>\n1..200 | \nSplit-Job {\nForEach-Object {\n $_\n}}<\/pre>\nmaxpipelines<\/code> parameter, each session runs in another runspace and the variables, functions are only visible in your runspace As it runs in another runspace all the variables that you want to pass to the main foreach-object<\/code> you need to pass as parameter<\/p>\n$var = 10\n1..200 | \nSplit-Job {\nForEach-Object {\n \"$($_) and $var\"\n}} -Variable var<\/pre>\nmaxpipelines<\/code>. That means that 50 runspaces will be opened asynchronously<\/p>\n$var = 10\n1..200 | \nSplit-Job {\nForEach-Object {\n \"$($_) and $var\"\n}} -Variable var -MaxPipelines 50<\/pre>\nfunction Test {\n write-host 'I am a function outside of the runspace'\n}<\/pre>\n$var = 10\n1..200 | \nSplit-Job {\nForEach-Object {\n \"$($_) and $var\"\n test\n}} -Variable var -MaxPipelines 50 -Function test<\/pre>\n