Ok, here's the new templated timer class from the suggestions. It's basically the code from Jeff with extensions and some slight corrections. Jeff, can you validate/correct the header text about copyrights ? I'm really not used to this so I did how I thought it should be done. I added two templates for the time type and time_duration type to make it more generic : template<class clock_type, class time_type = boost::posix_time::ptime, class time_duration_type = boost::posix_time::time_duration> class timer {}; I also added two typedefs for convenience: typedef boost::timer<boost::posix_time::second_clock> second_timer; typedef boost::timer<boost::posix_time::microsec_clock> microsec_timer; To see it in action do as usual, copy timer_new.hpp to the boost folder and compile main.cpp. This code seems to works fine on both windows & unixes and seems to do microsecond resolution as provided by boost::posix_time::microsec_clock. Now the question is, how should I do another microsec_clock class based on QPC or timeGetTime ? It's obvious that if I do one, it should not be used by the user as localtime() would not have a real meaning. As the initial goal is somewhat attained, do we want to make a QPC implementation at all ? At the moment the pros here are that we only change timer.hpp and the cons is a possible overhead on windows. Waiting of hearing from you :) Philippe