Hibernate + SQLServer

Olá,

Fiz os projetos do curso utilizando o MySQL conforme os vídeos, porem utilizo muito o SQLServer e estou com problemas na utilização do JPA.

Estou usando o Hibernate 4.3.7 Final; Microsoft JDBC 4.0 - SQLServer Driver

Primeiramente Criei um projeto similar ao do curso: FinancasSQLServer Adicionei o jpa e os jars do hibernate junto com os sqljdbc. Tudo no buildPath.

Criei o Persistence:

<persistence xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence
        http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/persistence_2_0.xsd"
    version="2.0">

    <persistence-unit name="gilmar">

        <!-- Hibernate -->
        <provider>org.hibernate.ejb.HibernatePersistence</provider>

        <!-- Entity -->
        <class>modelo.Conta</class>
        <properties>

            <!-- Propriedades JDBC -->
            <property name="javax.persistence.jdbc.driver" value="com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerDriver" />
            <property name="javax.persistence.jdbc.url" value="jdbc:sqlserver://server:1433;databaseName=gilmar" />
            <property name="javax.persistence.jdbc.user" value="sa" />
            <property name="javax.persistence.jdbc.password" value="mister+1" />

            <!-- Configurações específicas do Hibernate -->
            <property name="hibernate.dialect" value="org.hibernate.dialect.SQLServerDialect" />
            <property name="hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto" value="update" />
            <property name="hibernate.show_sql" value="true" />
            <property name="hibernate.format_sql" value="true" />
        </properties>
    </persistence-unit>
</persistence>

em seguida a classe Conta:

package modelo;

import javax.persistence.Entity;
import javax.persistence.Id;

@Entity
public class Conta {
    @Id
    private Integer id;
    private String titular;
    private String banco;
    private String agencia;
    private String numero;

//..get's e set's

Em seguida o JPAUtil:

package util;

import javax.persistence.EntityManager;
import javax.persistence.EntityManagerFactory;
import javax.persistence.Persistence;

public class JPAUtil {

    private static EntityManagerFactory entityManagerFactory = Persistence
            .createEntityManagerFactory("gilmar");

    public EntityManager getEntityManager(){
        return entityManagerFactory.createEntityManager();
    }

}

Finalmente o teste:

package teste;

import javax.persistence.EntityManager;

import util.JPAUtil;
import modelo.Conta;

public class testaJPA {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        Conta conta = new Conta();
        conta.setTitular("Gilmar");
        conta.setAgencia("12345-6");
        conta.setBanco("XPTO");
        conta.setNumero("123456789");

        EntityManager entityManager = new JPAUtil().getEntityManager();

        entityManager.getTransaction().begin();
        entityManager.persist(conta);
        entityManager.getTransaction().commit();

        entityManager.close();
    }

}

ao executar me traz o seguinte erro:

GRAVE: O Java Runtime Environment (JRE) versão 1.8 não tem suporte nesse driver. Use a biblioteca de classes sqljdbc4.jar, que dá suporte para JDBC 4.0.
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.ExceptionInInitializerError
    at teste.testaJPA.main(testaJPA.java:18)
Caused by: javax.persistence.PersistenceException: Unable to build entity manager factory
    at org.hibernate.jpa.HibernatePersistenceProvider.createEntityManagerFactory(HibernatePersistenceProvider.java:83)
    at org.hibernate.ejb.HibernatePersistence.createEntityManagerFactory(HibernatePersistence.java:54)
    at javax.persistence.Persistence.createEntityManagerFactory(Persistence.java:55)
    at javax.persistence.Persistence.createEntityManagerFactory(Persistence.java:39)
    at util.JPAUtil.<clinit>(JPAUtil.java:10)
    ... 1 more
Caused by: java.lang.UnsupportedOperationException: O Java Runtime Environment (JRE) versão 1.8 não tem suporte nesse driver. Use a biblioteca de classes sqljdbc4.jar, que dá suporte para JDBC 4.0.
    at com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerConnection.<init>(SQLServerConnection.java:304)
    at com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerDriver.connect(SQLServerDriver.java:1011)
    at org.hibernate.engine.jdbc.connections.internal.DriverConnectionCreator.makeConnection(DriverConnectionCreator.java:55)
    at org.hibernate.engine.jdbc.connections.internal.BasicConnectionCreator.createConnection(BasicConnectionCreator.java:75)
    at org.hibernate.engine.jdbc.connections.internal.DriverManagerConnectionProviderImpl.configure(DriverManagerConnectionProviderImpl.java:106)
    at org.hibernate.boot.registry.internal.StandardServiceRegistryImpl.configureService(StandardServiceRegistryImpl.java:111)
    at org.hibernate.service.internal.AbstractServiceRegistryImpl.initializeService(AbstractServiceRegistryImpl.java:234)
    at org.hibernate.service.internal.AbstractServiceRegistryImpl.getService(AbstractServiceRegistryImpl.java:206)
    at org.hibernate.engine.jdbc.internal.JdbcServicesImpl.buildJdbcConnectionAccess(JdbcServicesImpl.java:260)
    at org.hibernate.engine.jdbc.internal.JdbcServicesImpl.configure(JdbcServicesImpl.java:94)
    at org.hibernate.boot.registry.internal.StandardServiceRegistryImpl.configureService(StandardServiceRegistryImpl.java:111)
    at org.hibernate.service.internal.AbstractServiceRegistryImpl.initializeService(AbstractServiceRegistryImpl.java:234)
    at org.hibernate.service.internal.AbstractServiceRegistryImpl.getService(AbstractServiceRegistryImpl.java:206)
    at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.buildTypeRegistrations(Configuration.java:1887)
    at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.buildSessionFactory(Configuration.java:1845)
    at org.hibernate.jpa.boot.internal.EntityManagerFactoryBuilderImpl$4.perform(EntityManagerFactoryBuilderImpl.java:852)
    at org.hibernate.jpa.boot.internal.EntityManagerFactoryBuilderImpl$4.perform(EntityManagerFactoryBuilderImpl.java:845)
    at org.hibernate.boot.registry.classloading.internal.ClassLoaderServiceImpl.withTccl(ClassLoaderServiceImpl.java:398)
    at org.hibernate.jpa.boot.internal.EntityManagerFactoryBuilderImpl.build(EntityManagerFactoryBuilderImpl.java:844)
    at org.hibernate.jpa.HibernatePersistenceProvider.createEntityManagerFactory(HibernatePersistenceProvider.java:75)
    ... 5 more

PS. Ao criar a classe CONTA, deu erro ao adicionar a anotação @Entity, foi solicitado a alteração do JRE para 1.5

Esses jars estão funcionando normalmente com statement, apenas com o JPA não esta indo, possivelmente a causa é o persistence, porem não estou encontrando...

Desde já agradeço a ajuda...