When using Kaspersky Security Center you may set a policy in:

• Managed Computers
• Policies tab
• Advanced Settings
• Interface
• Enable Password Protection

The problem is the damn thing requires you to enter the old password before you can change to a different password.  This makes no sense and after trying to get around it for more than an hour I called Kaspersky support and was told that this is intentional and that the only way to get around it was to build a new policy from scratch… ya, not going to happen.  I told the agent this was unacceptable and that I needed this advanced.  The prospect of dumping all those settings which have taken years to configure just the way I like them made me nut. 

For other reasons I ended up contacting Kaspersky support again and I thought I should ask again and I got a much better answer.  The solution is to:

1. launch a Kaspersky End Point Security 8 CLIENT (i.e. NOT the server unless you are working on Server policy),
2. Click Settings,
3. Click Advanced Settings
4. Click SAVE.  This will save the currently applied configuration. 
5. Go to your Kaspersky Security Center SERVER
6. Click Managed Computers
7. Click the Policies Tab
8. right click on the white space in the center frame and choose NEW – PO)LICY
9. Run through the wizard as is obvious but on the third screen in select the .CFG file you just exported from your client station
10. Near the end of the wizard is an option to set the password… so do that and bingo you are free

Wasn’t that easy!