Did uninstall and reinstall. Actually, this is about the 3rd or 4th time I've done it. Still get the same message when I try to open Photosmart Essentials. Tried to do a scan via HP Solution Center and got the following error message:
"hpqscnvw has stopped working.
A problem caused the program to stop working correctly.
Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available"
I closed that and a couple of second later this message popped up:
"Unable to communicate with HP scanning software. Please verify that it has been installed and is working properly. If this problem persists, please shut down your application and try again"