The developed alternative method of analyzing the safety of the active zone of reactor installations is justified for improving the thermophysical properties and composition of nuclear fuel, designs of heat-releasing assemblies, reactor operation modes at increased or reduced power, etc. The impact of modernization on the safety criteria and conditions of reactor installations (RF) was analyzed. Attention was focused on the fact that until now there have been no sufficiently substantiated and accepted criteria and conditions for "steam" explosions in the Russian Federation. It was shown that when analyzing the safety of HF modernization with deterministic codes, it is necessary to take into account the possibility of negative effects of "user code" (EUC) and "code difference" (ECD), which can significantly affect the results of re-simulation of accidents with deterministic codes taking into account modernizations.