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Stand-alone is a loaded word, used to categorise computer programs. The term tries to draw some distinction between programs invoked by some computer event and those invoked by other programs. However this distinction does not stand up to scrutiny, since the computer has usually to be running some program that prepares (and sometimes initially processes) the "stand-alone" program to begin with. Hence all programs are launched or prepared/processed by other programs (with the sole exception of the bootstrap loader), and no code can really be said to stand alone.
A distinction might be drawn between programs that run as operating system processes and those that are loaded as an add-on in the context of an existing process, e.g. a plugin. This distinction may make some sense, but the term "stand-alone" has been used inconsistently: for instance, on the Macintosh platform, the plugin code has often been referred to as being stand-alone.
A less ambiguous terminology refers to application and non-application code, since "application" seems to be a commonly-accepted cross-platform term for a program that runs as a separate process and is invoked as a direct result of some user action. The "non-application" code then has to be loaded and run as part of the process context of the "application" code, and there is no ambiguity about which is which.
Other usages
In computer games, a stand-alone game is one that can be played without requiring another game to provide most of its operating code (as opposed to an expansion pack, which adds to a previous game).
Computers themselves are often termed "stand-alone" if they are not connected to a network.
In serial fiction, such as a television series or comic books, stand-alone refers to a story that is unrelated or unconnected to the broader plots of the overall series; it "stands alone" and can be enjoyed without detailed knowledge of the rest of the series (or of storylines that are active at the time of the "stand-alone" material's release), or missed without impacting one's understanding of the series.
"Stand-alone"