well i use this

''' <summary>
   ''' maakt van een byte array een object  
   ''' </summary>
   ''' <param name="Argdata">de ruwe binaire data </param>
   ''' <returns></returns>
   Private Function DeSerialize(ByVal Argdata() As Byte) As Object
       Dim m As New MemoryStream(Argdata)
       Dim b As New BinaryFormatter()
       m.Seek(0, 0) 'start
       Return b.Deserialize(m)
   End Function
   ''' <summary>
   ''' Maakt van een Object (foo) een byte array .
   ''' </summary>
   ''' <param name="Argdata">argdata als foo object</param>
   ''' <returns></returns>
   Private Function Serialize(ByVal Argdata As Object) As Byte()
       Dim b As New BinaryFormatter
       Dim m As New MemoryStream
       b.Serialize(m, Argdata)
       m.Seek(0, 0) 'start
       Return m.ToArray
   End Function

to serialize and deserialize objects in my projects ( i store the byte array
in a sql server  , but just as easy you could write it to a file )

example

<Serializable()> _
   Private Structure Selection
       Dim ControlSoort As ControlType
       Dim Vals As Object
       Dim Tooltip As String
       Dim Dsc As String
   End Structure

Dim vals As Selection = CType(DeSerialize(CType(drH.Item("ControlWrd"),
Byte())), Selection)

where drH.Item("ControlWrd") is the binary data storded in my database , i
have chosen explicitly not to use XML as Binary serialization and
deserialization is
1. more compact 2. much faster 3. i do not want people easy to see what is
stored in the fields

HTH

Michel Posseth