End a command after a given time in a bat file - batch-file

Question

I have a bat file to execute several programs, and there is a possibility that one program stays in a loop. And I would like to kill the execution of that program after 1 min and execute the next one.
The programs I would like to execute gif_0.exe, gif_1.exe, ... receiving inputs from txt and writing the output to another txt.
gif_0.exe input1.txt output1_0.txt
timeout /t 20
gif_0.exe input2.txt output2_0.txt
timeout /t 20
gif_1.exe input3.txt output3_0.txt
timeout /t 20
gif_2.exe input4.txt output4_0.txt
timeout /t 20
gif_3.exe input5.txt output5_0.txt

Answer 1

My idea is similar to Geisterfurz007.
But my batch starts the exe in parallel and also another instance of the batch with the name of the started exe as an arg. The new instance checks the arg and jumps to the sub where it waits for the timeout and tries to kill the exe.
#echo off
setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion
Set Wait=60
If "%1" Neq "" Goto :KillTask
for /l %%n in (0, 1, n) do (
set /a foo=%%n+1
start gif_%%n.exe input!foo!.txt output!foo!_0.txt
Start %~f0 gif_%%n.exe
)
Goto :Eof
:KillTask %1
timeout /t %Wait% /nobreak>nul
taskkill /F /IM %1

Answer 2

start "Title goes here" gif_0.exe input1.txt output1_0.txt
timeout /t 60 /nobreak>nul
taskkill /F /IM gif_0.exe
Should do the trick. Repeat after your needs.
Explanation:
starts your application with the given parameters
waits 60 seconds without the option to stop the timer before counting down and without any output.
Kills the task with the imagename of your application. If you may have several instances of this paralelly running this will kill all of them!
You can use filters to narrow down on one though; have a look at taskkill /?
I am not sure if there is a typo in your question but assuming your applications are gif_n.exe with the parameters inputn+1.exe outputn+1.exe
You can do the following:
#echo off
setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion
for /l %%n in (0, 1, n) do (
set /a foo=%%n+1
start gif_%%n.exe input!foo!.txt output!foo!_0.txt
timeout /t 60 /nobreak>nul
taskkill /F /IM gif_%%n.exe
)
This would go from 0 to n in single steps and would execute the same thing like above in a loop.
2 additions here:
The line setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion is needed to activate the possibility to use variables values after they were changed within a closed block of parenthesis like a for-loop or an if-condition.
set /a foo=%%n+1 will set the value of variable foo to the value of %%n+1. The switch /a is needed to perform an actual calculation and not the appending of a string.
To use the variable in our for-loop we have to use the DelayedExpasion (see above):
Simply change the % you would usually use to ! and you are done.
To make sure, everything works correctly you might want to place an echo in front of your three main lines.
Feel free to ask questions if something is unclear :)