Attachments won't open

Cannot open attachments from emails but mainly from college website for assignments. The "select program" window does not open. I think something is not checked in my computer. When I use my son's computer to open an attachment from an email or school website it automatically opens in the program it is designed to open in. But my computer will not open attachments. It ask's me if I want to save so I will select "save as" and then I get a message that the "file could not download". This is a newer computer, only a year old. Do you know what I need to check and where? I did some exploring a while back and this is the result of my exploring. I didn't know what I was doing and now I really need to be able to use this computer for school assignments and I can't even open them. Can you help?? I don't think this is a virus because I run avg anti virus and it comes back clean.

I called the school and they told me to try a new search engine. It worked! I can now open documents in the proper programs. Thanks!

Thanks for updating us with the resolution and we are glad it was resolved so quickly.