pgAgent does not start with message “ERROR: Couldn't register event handle.”

Dear postgres Folk,

I am able to start the pgAgent in debug mode on a windows (server 2016) machine with the help of

    C:\Program Files (x86)\pgAgent\bin>pgagent.exe DEBUG "host=localhost port=5432 user=postgres dbname=postgres password=********"

I also tested that I can start jobs through pgAdmin III.

Starting a service from services in Windows fails with a generic message. If I login as postgres user

    runas /user:postgres cmd

and then try to start the service there using the same command as in services:

    C:\Program Files (x86)\pgAgent\bin>pgagent.exe RUN pgAgent "host=localhost port=5432 user=postgres dbname=postgres password=*******"

I get an error

    ERROR: Couldn't register event handle.

(which is what I suppose the service does) How can I solve the issue?

(supplying a password over command line is not a problem. We have successfully tested different approaches including pgpass and pg_hba successfully. I am trying to nail down why the service does not start in a regular way here).

I believe that the version of pgAgent is 1.22.