What happens when you just "open" the file in Illustrator? The plug ins work when Illustrator needs to use them. For example, if you open a "Legacy" file (I assume you're working in CS?) then you have a plug in for that operation. You don't need to activate the plug ins, they activate for you.
You can also "place" the corel file in illustrator if that doesn't work.
what i think after reading from a number of forums Illustrator CS1 can only open files created in Corel 5 thru 10. No one has the answer to does CS2 open files created in Corel 11 or 12
Corel files can be saved to eps or illustrator files through corel. When I encounter a corel file from a customer I have them resave/export it to something I can use, or in the cases when they are to dumb I email the file to a friend with corel.
Have you sorted the Corel file problem (getting it into Illustrator)? If not, I have Corel on my iMac, version 11.3, and I could open the file, "Save As" and send it back to you back.
lakeman
basically, it's not a file that illustrator was designed to understand. it sounds like it's a corel <4 file, and isn't supported. unfortunately, the easiest way is just to ask for the file agian, in a proper format. this is not your problem, it's his. if i'm sending something to print, i'll generally export a huge 300dpi jpeg export of my file. everything supports jpeg.