Question:
How do you protect an application with a password and store it in the application’s exe-file?

Answer:
You’d have to hard code the password in. Then in the FormCreate method of your main form, you’d do something like this:

procedure TForm1.FormCreate(Sender: TObject);var  pwrd : String;  PassOK : Boolean;begin  Counter := 1;  PassOK := False;  while (Counter < 4) do begin    InputQuery('Type in a password',               'You have ' + IntToStr(4 - Counter) + ' tries left',               pwrd);    if (pwrd = 'MyPassword') then begin      PassOK := True;      Break;    end;      Inc(Counter);  end;  if NOT PassOK then begin    ShowMessage('Exceeded maximum number of tries. ' +                'Press OK to terminate.');    Application.Terminate;  end;end;

This simple password validation gives the user three tries to come up with the correct password. You could be more elaborate by using a resource file with a string resource that is read at run time.