Why am I getting Error Code 6 on StartService?

For my purposes, I need to write a kernel mode driver for Windows. Currently I am attempting to make it work under Windows 7 x64. I created a simple project in Visual Studio 2012 with default code for a KMDF driver. I compiled the code with test-signing on. The driver was compiled and signed. I also have Test-Signing ON enabled as clearly displayed on the bottom left corner of my Desktop. Upon trying to start the driver as a service, I always get an Error Code 6: Invalid Handle error.(I have since simplified the code to just try and start it but still did not work;default code did not work either) Basically, I am having the same problem as the question asked here https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12080157/startservice-error-6 unfortunately he was never answered. I tried the provided solution, but it didn't help either. My code that tries to start the driver is ``` int _cdecl main(void) { HANDLE hSCManager; HANDLE hService; SERVICE_STATUS ss; hSCManager = OpenSCManager(NULL, NULL, SC_MANAGER_CREATE_SERVICE); printf("Load Driver\n"); if(hSCManager) { printf("Create Service\n"); hService = CreateService(hSCManager, "Example", "Example Driver", SERVICE_ALL_ACCESS | SERVICE_START | DELETE | SERVICE_STOP , SERVICE_KERNEL_DRIVER, SERVICE_DEMAND_START, SERVICE_ERROR_IGNORE, "\\path\\to\\driver\\KMDFDriver1.sys", NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL); if(!hService) { hService = OpenService(hSCManager, "Example", SERVICE_ALL_ACCESS | SERVICE_START | DELETE | SERVICE_STOP); if(!hService) { // If initial startup of the driver failed, it will fail here. process_error(); return 0; } } if(hService) { printf("Start Service\n"); if(StartService(hService, 0, NULL) == 0) { // Start service ALWAYS returns 0. Only when executed for the first time. Next time it fails on OpenService. process_error(); printf("Did not start!\n"); } printf("Press Enter to close service\r\n"); getchar(); ControlService(hService, SERVICE_CONTROL_STOP, &ss); DeleteService(hService); CloseServiceHandle(hService); } CloseServiceHandle(hSCManager); } return 0; } ``` And this is the driver code ``` DRIVER_INITIALIZE DriverEntry; #ifdef ALLOC_PRAGMA #pragma alloc_text (INIT, DriverEntry) #endif NTSTATUS DriverEntry( _In_ PDRIVER_OBJECT DriverObject, _In_ PUNICODE_STRING RegistryPath ) { WDF_DRIVER_CONFIG config; NTSTATUS status; DbgPrint("Hello World!\n"); WDF_DRIVER_CONFIG_INIT(&config, NULL ); config.DriverInitFlags = WdfDriverInitNonPnpDriver; status = WdfDriverCreate(DriverObject, RegistryPath, WDF_NO_OBJECT_ATTRIBUTES, &config, WDF_NO_HANDLE ); if (!NT_SUCCESS(status)) { KdPrint( ("WdfDriverCreate failed with " "status 0x%x\n", status)); } return status; } ``` The function `process_error()` is a wrapper around `GetLastError()` which in addition to providing the numeric value, displays a text version of the error code. I have exhausted all options provided to me to solve this issue. A google search revealed only one occurrence of this problem, and the question was asked here. What could the problem be? Extra notes: The driver was compiled with Visual Studio 2012 Ultimate, while my startup code was compiled with MinGW-W64(using GCC). But the startup code shouldn't matter as much as the driver. Extra notes 2: After wondering for a long time what could be wrong I started thinking if it's the test-sign certificate, because I tried driver source code provided from MSDN, and upon successful compilation, I still got ERROR_INVALID_HANDLE(Error Code 6) when trying to start it. I have still not found a solution.