What do I need to download for Mixed Reality development with Unity for HoloLens?

Before you get started with developing for Mixed Reality for Unity, make sure to check everything in the below list and follow the instructions for each download.

Windows 10

Install the most recent version of Windows 10 Education or Pro Education so your PC's operating system matches the platform for which you are building mixed reality applications.

You can check your Windows version by typing "about" in the Windows search bar and selecting About your PC as shown in the below image.

Check your Windows Version in your System Settings under About.

You can learn more about upgrading your Windows 10 Home to Pro at aka.ms/WinHome2Pro.

We need to install and enable Hyper-V, which does not work on Windows Home. Make sure to upgrade to Education, Pro Education, Pro or Enterprise versions.

Unity

Go to: https://unity3d.com/get-unity/download page and download the Unity Hub instead of Unity Editor.

Download Unity Hub instead of the Unity Editor.
Unity Hub Editor Installs

Unity Hub allows you to download multiple Unity Editors and organize your projects in one place. Since Unity upgrades are not backward compatible, you have to open the projects with the same Unity version that it was created with. You can update the projects to the latest Unity version but that requires a lot of debugging usually. Easiest way to get going with a project is to keep the same version. I will show you how to debug to update your projects later in this chapter.

Unity Hub Projects Page

You will need to download Windows development related modules along with your Unity Editor. Make sure Universal Windows Platform Build Support and Windows Build Support is checked while downloading Unity Editor through Unity Hub or add it after by modifying the install.

Check Universal Windows Platform Build Support and Windows Build Support modules for Unity Editor.

You can add modules or check if you have them in your editor by clicking on the hamburger button for the Unity Editor version and checking the above module check-boxes.

If you would like to build for an Android or iOS mobile device, make sure the related modules are checked as well.

Unity Android Build Support Modules.

Visual Studio

You can download Visual Studio by adding Microsoft Visual Studio 2019 module to your Unity Editor as shown in previous step or download it at aka.ms/VSDownloads.

You can always add the necessary workflows to Visual Studio after download:

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