I now have an actual 32 channel midi file released by konami kukeiha club.

I know that if normal midi cables are used, you must use multiple midi cables to get to the different sets of channels, but using a serial or usb cable plus a driver included on the cd-rom if you rcopmuter supports it does seem to allow for gettign to all parts of the device. the sc8820/8850 supported usb, whiel the 88pro only supported dual midi in and serial.

This seems to suggest that there never was a plug and play solution to gaing access ot all 32/64 channels?

That said, i've found a number of ways to do so with sound canvas VA. I"m hoping this gets doen for the new sc88 project as well.

1) use virtual midi cables, and run multiple instances (use most cpu, but does give the most polyphony)
2) use Secret Sauce in foobar2000 midi player component, which appears to hook up sccore.dll in a manner that understands at least 32 channel midi files. This ojnly requires some sort of sccore.dll present. It doe snot require owning the full synth. in fac ti'm pretty sure you can just add the sccore.dll from the 32 bit trial.
3) use tabula sonora, which seems to understand >16 channel midi files just fine in it's player on the web, and presumably the other native players if they ever get released. This requires the most recetn version, so far.
4) use vst midi driver's single port 32 channel mode, and falcosoft midi player. this still doesn't get you to the other 32 parts, but it's good enough for sc88(pro) 32 channel midi files.

The situation seems similar wiith XG dvices, but i've yet to find a xg VSTI that understands >16 channels.

Stuff that seems to be missing.
1) a vsti/clap host that actually provides dual midi port and/or serial midi connectivity through a virtual serial cable.
2) mame version that exposes the serial interface to an emulated mu-80/100/128/etc. only midi in 1 and midi in 2 seem to be exposed, and not even trying to play a midi file directly helps. it just sends it to one or the other midi in port.