Can't get my DAW working on a laptop

The DAW in this case is Sonar but I can't find a driver without buying an interface and I only want to play with MIDI. How is it done? Can I expect a driver for say, a Focusrite interface to work without the interface? Maybe I didn't have ASIO4ALL properly configged?

I have tried! I thought something so obvious as Windows recording music would be a no-brainer, so I tried everything I could think of. I got the normal laptop audio or nothing depending on the driver I was trying to use.

Thanks - rev

Laptop: Asus X515EA
Chip: Core i3
RAM: 20 gig
OS: Windows 10 19045 build 10.0.19045
Architecture: x64

Possibly useful links:

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/windo...-guide-part-1/

https://dittomusic.com/en/blog/best-...r-making-music

https://www.reddit.com/r/musicproduc...w_for_windows/

https://www.musicradar.com/news/the-...for-pc-and-mac