how to skip a executable file?

I want to put a command in order to make that the program continues if in some times there isn't input e.g In my program I execute an executable file, but sometimes it delays a lot of time to give me an input, then I'd like to put a sort of timer to skip it if it delays more than 1 min.

[Image Analyst]

What is the executable program? Is it commercially available software? Does that software use ActiveX, which might give MATLAB some chance at determining if that program has had any activity in it?

Answer 1

[dpb]

Start the external program with the trailing & to allow execution to continue immediately and then issue a pause for the desired time interval. This works with Windoes; not positive the system or unix function has that facility builtin on non-Windows platform. If that's the case probably have to get more creative like actually using the OS to dispatch another process manually if Matlab is waiting on the result when start the other program.