Ok, well; first, get a Mac or an iPhone or iPad. Then just do what I described in that other post up there. 
My Verizon phone highlights any word that has an emoji equivalent and you just have to click on it and see the options.
Personally I rarely use them unless I’m trying to annoy the recipient.
According to the Wikipedia article on emoji, Windows 8 and higher has full support for the emoji characters that have been UI standardized. In Windows 7 some of them are supported by the Segoe UI Symbol font. Entering them is laborious however without an emoticon/emoji menu interface. There are sites like http://classic.getemoji.com/ that allow you to cut’n’paste, though which your OS and browser supports may vary.
Get off my damn lawn!