Thank you all for your help – much appreciated!!
I changed the actions to “ask” for all of the shields.

Someone asked how I knew the executable was not malware. Because I wrote it!! It was my own program that Avast deleted!!!

I disagree with this statement:
“Pondus is correct in that you as the user should have known to go into each of the Shields “Action” and changed the setting to “Ask” as the first option”

When you say “should have known” – Why the use of the word “should”? How would I as a user know to change the actions? How would any user know? Think of the ‘typical’ user who installs Avast but has no idea that they should consider changing the actions and that Avast’s operation could potentially remove important files that the user knows to be not infected with malware. Are we saying that Avast is designed only for knowledgeable users and not for the general public? I would hope not.

Do you think I am wrong in my opinion? Comments?