First, I am trying to figure out how to use BOOST_CLASS_EXPORT. I am trying to do it using the following advice from the documentation: "As noted in the comments, this would work. But #include <.../export.hpp> can't be used without conflicting with other modules which use #include <.../*archive.hpp>. In this case we can move the export to an implementation file: // A.cpp #include "A.hpp" ... // export.hpp header should be last; #include <boost/serialization/export.hpp> ... BOOST_CLASS_EXPORT(A) ..." In fact, my implementation file contains *only* BOOST_CLASS_EXPORT statements. Code like this seems to compile only if I also include archive headers like: #include <boost/archive/xml_oarchive.hpp> #include <boost/archive/xml_iarchive.hpp> If these directives are omitted, then my code does not compile. Is this correct? (I didn't see anything about this in the documentation) But now if a class that is being exported contains a boost::shared_ptr<..> member (so I have to #include boost/serialization/shared_ptr.hpp), then I get the following compilation errors (in MSVC8.0express): ..\..\..\vendor\boost\boost/serialization/shared_ptr.hpp(134) : error C2039: 'reset' : is not a member of 'boost::archive::naked_xml_iarchive' ..\..\..\vendor\boost\boost/archive/xml_iarchive.hpp(91) : see declaration of 'boost::archive::naked_xml_iarchive' ..\..\..\vendor\boost\boost/serialization/split_free.hpp(58) : see reference to function template instantiation 'void boost::serialization::load<Archive,AndrewKalotayAssociates::Basic::Output::ValuationReport>(Archive &,boost::shared_ptr<T> &,const unsigned int)' being compiled Can someone tell from this what I'm doing wrong?