System() to start a process, but using CreateProcess fails?

So, curious problem, I'm trying to create a process, and then resume it, mostly exploring the Windows API. I've noticed that if I do this:

system("C:\\Windows\\System32\\calc.exe");

It will open a calculator exe, however if I try to do the same thing using CreateProcessA, I get this:

STARTUPINFO starting_info;
PROCESS_INFORMATION process_info;

// let's try and make a process
if (!CreateProcessA(NULL, "C:\\Windows\\System32\\calc.exe", NULL, NULL, FALSE, CREATE_SUSPENDED, NULL, NULL, &starting_info, &process_info)) {
    return;
}
// resume thread
NtResumeThread(process_info.hThread, NULL);

This for some reason throws an error of 0xc0000142 most of the times when it "creates" the process, else it just fails.

What's going on?

See the following MSDN sample code for creating a process: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms682512(v=vs.85).aspx

You need to zero out the si and pi structs, also set

si.cb = sizeof(si);

In the end, close process and thread handles.

CloseHandle(pi.hProcess);
CloseHandle(pi.hThread);