How to ignore the password policy in a custom workflow?

Question

Hi,
We have a custom workflow which is called via SPML to provide 'Administrator Change Password' functionality in a portal.
Our password policy sets the String Quality rules and Number of Previous Passwords that Cannot be Reused. But we like to bypass the password policy when the password administrators (who have a admin role with a capability - 'Change Password Administrator'). At least, restriction ' Number of Previous Passwords that Cannot be Reused' need to be ignored (But password need to be added to the history... cannot disable adding passwords to history).
Please advice me how it could be achieved?
The workflow steps:
1. Checkout 'ChangeUserPassword' view for the user as an administrator
2. Set the new password in the view, set true to view.savePasswordHistory
3. Set password on the resources
4.Checkin the view
Thanks
Siva

Answer 1

Thanks eTech.
My main goal is to skip the password history check (new password can't be a last used 10 passwords) when admin change password workflow is launched. As you suggested , I created a special password policy exactly as our regular password policy excluding "Number of Previous Passwords that Cannot be Reused" setting.
Then before change the password of a user as admin, special policy is attached , password changed, and user's password policy is reverted back to regular one. The issue is, as the special policy does not enforce the password history check, the whole password history of the user is wiped out from the user object when the password is changed by admin change password workflow. We don't want this to happen.
Please guide me whether is anyway to achieve just ignoring the password history without any other impact on user.
Is adding passwords to user object's password history list is triggered by "Number of Previous Passwords that Cannot be Reused" setting of the password policy??
Thanks
Siva