I am also running IE8 (Windows 7), yet I can access all of the smilies. What OS are you running? Is your computer up to date as far as Microsoft's pushed updates?
Check your full version number with the one in my picture.
We had a long thread about it in the mentor forum MIH. I have the problem on my old computer running XP and IE8 (aka devil spawn). I have IE7 on Vista on my new computer and refuse to change to IE8. IE7 works fine and doesn't have the problems IE8 has.
I just got a new computer with IE 8 preinstalled on Windows 7. I just tried it and I can't get ANY of the message menu items to react when I click on them. I'm glad that I don't use IE anyway - I would hate to debug that mess along with all of the other issues that I'm trying to fix.
If IE8 users (or anyone else) have trouble using the smiley menu, they can always type in the smiley name. The full list is https://www.physicsforums.com/misc.php?do=showsmilies" .