Hello all, we basically have a setup like this: #ifdef _DEBUG template <typename T> struct Wrapper { T m_value; }; #define HANDLE(T) Wrapper<T> #else #define HANDLE(T) T #endif We want archives the same for debug and release. So I tried a couple of things: * use primitive_type: This doesn't work if the type T is a string. Basically it doesn't come in the 'load(std::wstring &ws)' anymore, since it now routes to operator<< and then all kinds of nasty thing happens for xml archives. * overload serialize. This is also a failure, since it expects somehow a nvp, which I tried to circumvent since then there is a difference between archives in debug or release. Using 'is_wrapper' doesn't help either template <class Archive, typename T> void serialize(Archive& ar, Wrapper<T>& r, const unsigned int) { ar & r.m_value; // static assert in basic_xml_iarchive::load_override } somehow I must specify raw storage in the serialize function, but load_override and its siblings are all protected. Anyone?