OK, in my other post where I when on about not being able to serialize char*, I gave up and used std::string (I'm sure there's a way to a support for char*). Anyway I am having problems with splitting intrusive serialize methods when using STL containers in MSVC++ 7.1 look at ... class P { private: int qw; friend class boost::serialization::access; template<class Archive> void serialize(Archive& ar, const unsigned int version) { ar & qw; } public: P() : qw(0) {} P(int Qw) : qw(Qw) {} }; typedef std::list<P*> pList; class Test { pList p; friend class boost::serialization::access; BOOST_SERIALIZATION_SPLIT_MEMBER() template<class Archive> void load(Archive& ar, const unsigned int version) { ar & p; } template<class Archive> void save(Archive& ar, const unsigned int version) const { ar & p; } public: Test() {} }; If anyone tries to write this to an archive using something like ... Test t; std::ofstream ofs("frameTest"); boost::archive::text_oarchive oa(ofs); oa << t; ofs.close(); then I get .\boost_1_32_0\boost\serialization\split_free.hpp(45): error C2780: 'void boost::archive::save(Archive &,const T &)' : expects 2 arguments - 3 provided Now if I remove the load/save spliting and use a normal serialize method, this compiles fine. However I need separated load/save methods as the class I am using this on deals with SDL resources / structures. As a result I need to make it so my load method does special things to load surfaces for a little arcade game I'm working on. Could someone confirm this is a bug / issue with boost and not something dumb I'm missing out on. I've only been coding in C++ for the last month, and come from a PHP / Web programming background, so I'm still getting used to the change.