How many number of LAN cards a system can have? I have one installed for Cable Net and now i want to connect my PC with my friends network who has a hub and few other computers connected to it. Now should i installed another LAN card?

You can turn a PC into a router using Windows 2003 Server NAT and by using two NIC cards...
You can turn a PC into Network Media Streamer and make XP act like server switch
You can pretty much do anything you want if you have the right software and hardware equipment..

NIC 1 - WAN
NIC 2 - LAN - would go into a 5, 8, 16, 24, 32 port switch

You can also make that router into a wireless router

NIC 1 - WAN
NIC 2 - LAN
NIC 3 - WLAN

You can also make it have 4 NIC

NIC 1 - WAN
NIC 2 - LAN
NIC 3 - WLAN
NIC 4 - WLAN

Depends on how many PCI slots you have..

to be honest, i would just buy a router.

Don't buy a router.

Yes, you can install as many network cards as you want and getting another one for this kind of a split netwotk is a good idea.

thanks for everyones replies

chaining systems serially (gateway -- systemA -- systemB -- systemX)
is always a poor choice, as the activity on any system between you and the gateway
will impact your bandwidth AND it must be up and running to have any access.
connecting a router to the gateway and then all systems to the router avoids
both those issues.

as for multiple NIC cars in a single system, maybe Win/XP has fixed the issues,
but Win/NT was good for two cards and caused all kinds of problem going to
three or four. our site backed up to two cards and multiple routers to keep a
stable server environment.

As I gathered, he does not want to chain anything. He just wants simultaneous access to his own internet connection and his friend's LAN (that has its own internet connection I assume).

Can i connect another LAN card for another Cable Net? actually both cable net service provider have fixed the net speed at 8Kps, will i able to use the speed of both nets at same time as (8Kps+8Kps=16Kps)?
one more thing will my friend(not a member of any of these LANs) be able to access the ftps and https provided by both cable net providers (they allow anonymous downloads, no restriction to some ftps/https)?

Yes, you can hook up two internet connections but AFAIK it is tricky to make Windows use them simultaneously and balance the traffic.

You would have to set up internet connection sharing for your friend to get access to your cable connection.

But the Internet Connection Sharing will only share the Internet access. RIGHT!!
The Internet service provider won't allow that!!

Access to these servers is through your internet connection(s), RIGHT? SO you need to share your internet connection to let your friend use the servers.

ok i am going to share my Internet connection,
Will the cable net Internet service provider be able to detect these changes?
Will my friends visible to other LAN users/the Admin.?

No, the people you share the internet to will not be directly visible to your cable company. Of course, if anyone bothered, it would indeed be possible to analyse the traffic and find out that you are doing NAT. Your cable company is not going to do that, don't worry.