Cannot receive pictures (only a grey box) or hyperlinked web sites.

I am unable to receive any pictures in my emails.  I get a big grey box.  How come?  How can I change this?  Also I do not get hyper-linked web sites that I can click on or when I send a link to a web site in my emails, they are not hyper-linked?  What is the problem?  I have windows live email.