I have a windows 8 which means I am unable to install virtual studio 2017, I cannot upgrade to 8.1 because I have already tried and it crashed my entire computer and forced me to factory reset, and I'm not taking the same chance again. Is there any way I can use virtual studio 2015 with unreal engine 4.16? If not, what other IDE's can I use and how would I use them with unreal engine. Thank you for any responses.
You can use Visual Studio 2015 without any problems, altough Visual Studio 2017 is recommended.
I think EPIC officially only supports Visual Studio as IDE, but you can use many alternatives, for example CLion or KDE. Just search around in the Wiki or Answerhub and you will find the necessary steps to set everything up.