Is there a way to force Visual studio 2017 to accept a CMAKE 2.8.12.2 - c++

Question

So I am trying to build a basic C++ project on our university Linux server.
I went and checked the CMake version on the server, it is 2.8.12.2
I love using Visual Studio, so i tried using Visual Studio after SSH into my university server to build a basic hello world program on it.
I got the following message in my Visual Studio 2017:
CMake 3.8.x or above is not available on the remote system. See https://aka.ms/linuxcmakeconfig for more info
Is there a way to forcibly make Visual Studio accept a lower version of CMake 2.8.12.2
I made changes to the CMakeLists.txt as follows:
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 2.8.12.2).
But still Visual Studio was complaining about not having CMake version 3.8 in the University server.
I've attached the screen shots below:
I was told to use some IDE called CLion. But I know Visual Studio is the better option, having used it all my life in the real world/non-university setting.

Answer 1

TL;DR
No, it's not possible.
Reason
The Visual Studio 2017 documentation states here:
The CMake support in Visual Studio requires server mode support introduced in CMake 3.8.
This means VS requires the cmake-server(7) API to query information like where CMake puts the built binaries, what include paths are used, etc. Without this information, VS would not be able to provide all the useful features of an IDE such as debugging, include path checks/auto-completion, etc. So there is no way, the CMake integration of VS (or any other IDE like CLion) is going to work with an CMake version that does not provide the server mode yet, which is definitely the case for all 2.x versions.
More Background
The server mode was actually introduced in CMake 3.7. I don't know why the VS docs suggest it's 3.8 🤷‍♂️. But I guess that's not an important difference for your case anyway.
Newer versions of Visual Studio (since 2019) even use the more recent cmake-file-api(7) introduced in CMake 3.14 as stated here:
Cmake version 3.14 or later should be installed on the target machine.
The server mode was even deprecated in 3.15 and completely removed in 3.20 in favor of the file-based API.
The VS devs even maintain their own CMake fork: github.com/microsoft/CMake.
This is because the server mode didn't provide them all the information they needed, as stated in their blog:
One of the differences in our CMake fork on github was the backtrace information needed for our Targets View feature inside Visual Studio. Prior to CMake 3.14 we needed the CMake version from our fork, in order for Targets View to work properly. Now, with the file-based API this is no longer required.
So maybe with VS 2017 you should use a CMake binary built by Microsoft. For VS 2019+ the "stock" CMake should probably be fine. As of now, they still maintain their fork, but I haven't found any source that indicates you're required to use it. Probably because Microsoft has become more involved in the CMake development the last couple of years and contributes to the upstream repository as well, e.g. cmake-presets(7) is the result of a cooperation between Microsoft and Kitware.
Recommended Solution
As #Shawn already commented, CMake 2.8.12 is seriously outdated (released 2013-10-08) and the best solution would be to ask the admin of your University to update CMake to a more recent version. This has the additional advantage, that you can use and benefit from the "Modern CMake" techniques.