I have a base class BASE that stores data. It has a virtual function (empty in base class) that determines how this data is calculated, but there's no data stored in the derived classes. In my program, I'll load a pluging that is based on BASE and implements the function to calculate the data. Right now I have BOOST_EXPORT_CLASS in the plugin header files and I serialize boost::serialization::base_object<BASE>(*this) in the derived class. This lets me save the serialization to file just fine. When I load it back in though, my application isn't aware of the plugins (I'm just analyzing the data). But I don't need the plugins, since I just need the data. So when I try to load in my serialization, I get an "unregistered class" exception. Here's how it works /*************** CODE ******************/ class BASE { public: vector<double> data; virtual calculate() {}; private: friend class boost::serialization::access; template<class Archive> void serialize(Archive &ar, const unsigned int version) { ar & data; } } class Plugin: public BASE { public: virtual calculate() { /* do stuff */ } private: friend class boost::serialization::access; template<class Archive> void serialize(Archive &ar, const unsigned int version) { ar & boost::serialization::base_object<BASE>(*this); } } BOOST_CLASS_EXPORT(Plugin) /*************** CODE ******************/ Class Plugin is loaded dynamically at runtime via dlopen() on linux. So I have a BASE* that points to an instance of A. When I load in the serialized data though, I don't really care about A and would rather just have a BASE* that points to an instance of BASE. Since there's no data described in A. Can I do this somehow? Thanks