I've encountered a problem with madExcept - on my system (XP SP2, D7, NTFS drive with the project files) most of the times if the compile or build fails, madExcept doesn't sense the failure and somehow tries to do it's thing too, but it ends up locking the file - so I have to close & restart Delphi (I could close the handle, but it seems to brutal to do on a regular basis).
Also, what free .exe-compressor would be recommended instead of UPX so the traces are valid? (MEW maybe? petite charges for commercial usage, which I sometimes do...)