Why am I getting Error Code 6 on StartService?

Question

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.

Answer 1

I tracked this down to the project settings of the driver. The KMDF versions were missing from the project.

Adjust the following (under Driver Model Settings):
  -  KMDF Version Major = 1
  -  KMDF Version Minor = 9

Hit OK, recompile, and reinstall. Worked for me!