OK so this AEC is some kind of programming application? I'll take a look at it some time but do bear in mind I can only follow instructions at this stage, I'm not a programmer myself and don't know any of the programming languages other than HTML, Javascript and CSS - normally I wouldn't touch a system file without guidance!
In this case I figured it was pretty safe because if things went wrong it would just be a matter of reinstalling Avast and re-downloading the updates;-) I do keep the original download file in My Documents just in case and back everything up regularly!