Which tool would you recommend for creating standalone .exe files (Windows) from Flash? And why?
The Flash IDE does that quite nicely. It's configured at the "Publish Settings" and I really can't see any problems with the projectors it produces. Maybe you have something else in mind?
If you're trying to go for extra performance gains there is the Swiff Player ( http://www.globfx.com/products/swfplayer/ ) with the OpenGL accelaration, but they do not make it clear whether they support advanced scripting in the movies. Also there is the Zinc RAD Suite from MDM ( http://www.multidmedia.com/software/zinc/ ) which is specifically targeted for crossplatform development.