Cant compile spring boot on java 1.8

I am trying to build a demo spring boot app but cannot compile in java 1.8.

I can compile this with java 17 just fine. However, the server I am going to run this on can only have 1.8. When I set my java home to my 1.8 jdk and I am not able to build my demo spring boot app. This is the error I get when I run ./mvnw.cmd package

[ERROR] Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-compiler-plugin:3.11.0:compile (default-compile) on project demo: Fatal error compiling: invalid flag: --release -> [Help 1]

Here is my pom.xml.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 https://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    <parent>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
        <version>3.1.0</version>
        <relativePath/> <!-- lookup parent from repository -->
    </parent>
    <groupId>com.example</groupId>
    <artifactId>demo</artifactId>
    <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <name>demo</name>
    <description>Demo project for Spring Boot</description>
    <properties>
        <java.version>8</java.version>
    </properties>
    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>

    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>

</project>

As documented the minimal requirement for Spring Boot 3.x is Java17, trying to use Java 1.8 will simply fail.

So either get your server to provide Java 17 or downgrade to Spring Boot 2.7 for which the minimum requirement is Java 8.