I've been using serialization with polymorphic archives from boost 1.38, but I had to apply the patch given by Vladimir Prus (http://lists.boost.org/boost- users/2009/03/45658.php) to get it linking (with MSVC71). E.g.: #include <boost/archive/polymorphic_text_oarchive.hpp> #include <boost/archive/polymorphic_text_iarchive.hpp> #if BOOST_VERSION <= 103800 #include <boost/archive/impl/archive_pointer_oserializer.ipp> #include <boost/archive/impl/archive_pointer_iserializer.ipp> namespace boost { namespace archive { template class detail::archive_pointer_iserializer<polymorphic_text_oarchive>; template class detail::archive_pointer_iserializer<polymorphic_text_iarchive>; }} #endif #include <boost/serialization/export.hpp> #include <sstream> struct A { template <typename A> void serialize(A &, const unsigned) {} }; BOOST_CLASS_EXPORT(A); void test_ser() { A a; std::ostringstream ostr; boost::archive::polymorphic_text_oarchive arch(ostr); arch & a; } Can anyone tell me if this has been addressed in 1.39? I.e. does the above compile and link with 1.39 (on MSVC71)? TIA. Chard.