Printing unicode to console in C#

Question

I can't get the Console to print unicode characters using the Console.WriteLine or Console.Out.WriteLine. After searching the Internet, I found two suggestions.

Console.OutputEncoding = Encoding.UTF8;  // Option 1 for setting encoding
Console.WriteLine("Smiley face: ????");

Console.OutputEncoding = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8;  //Option 2
Console.WriteLine("Smiley face: ????");

Problem is that both these approaches give the same error below:

 

Smiley face: ????

Exception thrown: 'System.IO.IOException' in mscorlib.dll

An unhandled exception of type 'System.IO.IOException' occurred in mscorlib.dll

The handle is invalid.

 

I have changed the console font to Lucida Console but still the unicode characters are not being printed 

 

Environment:

IDE: VS Community version, 2017, Version 15.3.4

Windows 10