forwarded mail does not contain attachments

When I open a received mail  or my own sent mail containing attachments, and wish to forward it to a third party, the attachments are not included.  How can I correct this?  Al;\so when I reopen a received mail I get the whole string of emails when I only want to see the last one and it  is difficult to find sometimes since it  is listed only by the first receiver or sender.  Hotmail was better in these respects.