I know. I figured that would upset some people. I used to use Cakewalk back when I had an EMU-APS. That card probably still works in Win 10 using kxDrivers BTW, but EMU1212M will not work in Win 10 past 1809 without that strange hack. The kxDrivers are also developed by Russians but I think they are at least Open Source.
The comment that started me off was:
Rico - "I see scores of Mac-heads endlessly upgrading to end up with no improvement..."
I've seen this time and time again. Whenever Microsoft breaks the drivers for a high $$$ audio interface, some non-tech musician tells the victim users: "Just buy another sound card". That's not the correct answer. If you're Garth Brooks, Toby Mac, Whitney Houston, Mandisa, Ye West, etc..., yeah, just buy another audio interface and get over it. If you are any normal kind of person, you can't afford to buy a new $$$ audio interface every time Microsoft jacks up their OS. I'm a Computer Programmer by trade, but I don't get paid very well.
There is no reason why people should be forced to buy a new audio interface every time Microsoft jacks up their OS when a driver rewrite would suffice. Unfortunately, I don't have the time or skill to do these intensive driver rewrites.
Theoretically a Layla 3G (or virtually any audio interface) should be able to work in Win 10 21H2 and Win 11 if Microsoft, Echo (or the prospective vendor) would spend the time/money to rewrite the drivers. Unfortunately, no one is paying them to do it, so all corporations involved refuse. It sounds a lot like planned obsolescence to me except that it's probably not intentional in this case...
My guess is that a Layla 3G will work (without major driver modification) in Win 10 21H2 / Win 11 but I can't test it because I don't have one yet. On the other hand, the EMU1212M will not because Creative Labs and EMU initialize the DSP chip at startup. Modern Win 10/Win 11 builds have apparently been restructured to prevent the EMU1212M from initializing the DSP thereby rendering the card useless without the hack despite my observation that the "basic" drivers seem work. In other words, the EMU 1212M drivers are apparently working without the hack, but you can't hear jack because the DSP chip isn't getting initialized.
If Layla 3G also has effects on a DSP, it's possible the initialization sequence for them will also fail. I don't think an M-Audio Delta 1010 would load any code into a DSP at startup so it might be more likely to work as OSes continue to "evolve".
If you want a future proof audio interface, then get one with as much functionality built into the interface as possible and try to make sure the said audio interface uses no firmware. In modern Win 10 builds, I think Microsoft did something (maybe security wise) that made it difficult for old school drivers to initialize the firmware on high $$$ audio interfaces. Many CPUs these days have six cores (or maybe more) and can handle two threads per core. If that isn't enough, you can even get Mother Boards with two CPUs but that's rarely cost effective for audio hobbyists.
My guess is that M-Audio Delta 1010 does not use firmware, but I could be wrong... If M-Audio Delta 1010 doesn't use firmware, that's a GOOD thing. As fast as computers are these days, there is no need to offload audio processing onto an audio-interface. You really only need the audio interface to ensure each input signal gets cleanly converted to digital form and put on its own separate track. Your DAW and CPU can handle the effects processing on their own without the help of the audio interface.
I'm sorry for disturbing you. For real. I'm not having the best of days and this kind of thing really does make me upset.