Is this a link to something that opens in firefox? If it is something that displays inside of outlook, you will need to contact Microsoft, as outlook is not produced by mozilla.

When you click on the box (assuming this is in firefox), a prompt should appear in the top left of the window confirming you want to use silverlight. If if doesn't appear, you may need to reinstall silverlight. Go to http://www.microsoft.com/getsilverlight/get-started/install/default.aspx, download the file, and follow the installation instructions.

If a plugin is set to "Ask to Activate" on the Add-ons page, there may be times when it is not obvious what you need to do. Here are some general tips:

(1) You can set "Ask to Activate" or change it to "Always Activate" (if you don't mind all sites being able to start playing media without specific permission) on the Add-ons page. Either:

• Ctrl+Shift+a
• "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Add-ons

In the left column, click Plugins.

(2) When you visit a site that wants to use a plugin set to "Ask to Activate" you should see:

• a notification icon on the left end of the address bar that looks something like a small Lego block

• one or both of the following
  • a link in a black rectangle in the page
  • an infobar sliding down between the toolbar area and the page

You may have noticed that any time you use a link in the page or the infobar, Firefox actually drops a dialog down from the plugin notification icon in the address bar. I think this was designed to train us to use the notification icon, and not always assume that the other methods will be available, since they sometimes do not appear (for example, there may be an image "poster" in front of a media player blocking the link).

(3) You should not use "Ask to Activate" with plugins that operate globally behind the scenes such as security plugins or password managers. Instead, set these to "Always Activate" if you want to use them, or "Never Activate" if you don't.

I didn't notice anything dropping down. Also, what's an infobar? And what am I supposed to do if clicking the black box doesn't work? Does this mean Silverlight is messed up?

Correction. It's a large gray box with a black border, and a Lego block shape, and the words "Activate Silverlight". Nothing dropped down, that I could see. And I did not see anything that looked especially like a link. I clicked the words and the Lego block, and all that happened was the e-mail message grayed out. It would not return to normal until I hit "escape".

Hi kj2008, since the link in the page is not working, try using the little notification icon in the address bar (to the left of the address of the page).

An "infobar" is a bar that Firefox displays between the toolbar area and the page. It generally appears with a sliding down animation. One example would be: Firefox blocked a popup on this page.

Nothing there. Nothing behind the page, no info bar, and there's nothing to the left of the address except the lock symbol. Which doesn't do anything like that when I click it.

If Firefox doesn't display the plugin notification icon in the address bar, it sounds like Firefox is not detecting that the page wants to use a plugin. I'm not sure why that is happening. Is there a way to launch the message into a separate window in case it's a problem with a frame?

In re-reading this thread from the beginning, you shouldn't need Silverlight to read a JPEG. Maybe the mail site was planning to run a slide show of multiple images...