I never knew that ...

But after using Windows since its earliest public incarnation that there is a keyboard shortcut to pull up an window for inserting emojis when writing something:-

Windows + .

Can't remember when the Windows key was introduced (Windows XP?) but since when was this available? 😕

Ah! The shortcut was introduced as recently as June 2017 in W10. Don't feel so bad about it now.

For completeness the Windows key itself was introduced in 1994 and first used in W95.

In reply to a post by gomezz:

For completeness the Windows key itself was introduced in 1994 and first used in W95.

The MS natural keyboard range had the Windows key, and there was software for Windows 3.1 to make use of the key.

I bow to your more extensive knowledge.

One big plus of the Windows + . method is that it is much easier to find just the right emoji for the right occasion such as smirk: 😏

I had one of the keyboards just as work was installing Win95, so I only used it with Win3.1 for about a week. IntelliType software 🤣🤣⌨️⌨️

It also works using:

🪟+ ;

That actually makes more sense as you are halfway to a wink.

I heard about it a while ago, but I hate emojis, so forgot about it pretty quickly.

I just wish all sites supported all the old style text emoticons and changed them to the appropriate emoji

Smile
Grin
Huh! :/
Sad
Angry >
Wink

Are the ones I like to use. So on here Huh! and Angry are not supported.