Color Emoji support in Winforms/WPF application?

Question

I'd like to build a Windows application that supports Windows 8.1's color emoji. What I can't seem to find actually stated anywhere, but seems to be the case, is that this isn't possible unless you're building a "Windows Store" application, which of course requires a paid developer license. Oh boy, it's iOS development all over again!

So anyway, is there a way to develop in either WinForms or WPF which will allow color emoji while running on Windows 8.1?

Answer 1

As of .NET 4.6.1, you can't out of the box. Color emojis don't work in WPF. They do on XAML Universal Windows apps, but WPF specifically they do not.

You only solution right now is to do some UI layer processing that inserts an image of your choice for every emoji you want to be displayed in color. It's a crappy process but that's all you got right now.