Chareidi kby soldier,
That is why I wrote “good morning” and “good evening” as examples and not “how are you.” The former two are certainly mutar, the latter is as you wrote.
It also seems to me that even without the Rama, according to the Shulchan Aruch it might only refer to genuinely asking how she is doing, not the perfunctionary “Hi, how are you?” that one uses when engaging it routine commercial speech.