First you should read about the difference between #include "filepath" and #include <filepath> here.

Personally, I'm working with Boost from Visual Studio as follows:

1. Go to Project properties → C/C++ → General → Additional Include Directories, and add a path to the boost library root (in my case C:\Program Files (x86)\Boost_1_53).
2. Include a .hpp file in your sources, like #include <boost/lexical_cast/lexical_cast_old.hpp>

If you're using non headers-only libraries you should also add path to Boost libraries in Project properties → Linker → General → Additional Libraries Directories.

if it's not a typo, the "," is not needed in the set directive :

set(BOOST_ROOT "C:/dev/tools/boost_1_60_0")

this should work as expected.

The first variant,

Boost_INCLUDE_DIRS     - Boost include directories

is among variables titled with

results are reported in variables:

These variable are for using (via read) in the CMakeLists.txt after find_package(Boost).

The second variant,

Boost_INCLUDE_DIR         - Directory containing Boost headers

is among variables titled with

saves search results persistently in CMake cache entries:

That is, you may set this CACHE variable (e.g. with -D option when call cmake) for hint CMake about the Boost location.

But preferable way for hint CMake about Boost location is to set variables in the list above, titled with

This module reads hints about search locations from variables:

When read these variables, CMake (FindBoost.cmake script) checks their value for correctness. E.g. it could be checked that directory stored in variable BOOST_INCLUDEDIR actually contains some Boost headers.

Following recipe should work

Download Boost binaries from official boost binaries location and install to say C:\Boost

Most times you do not need to build Boost on your own.

Your CMakeLists.txt should look like follows

cmake_minimum_required (VERSION 3.8)

project(boostAndCMake)

set(BOOST_ROOT "C:\Boost") # either set it here or from the command line  
set(Boost_USE_STATIC_LIBS OFF) 
set(Boost_USE_MULTITHREADED ON)  
set(Boost_USE_STATIC_RUNTIME OFF) 
find_package(Boost REQUIRED COMPONENTS system) # header only libraries must not be added here

add_executable(CMakeProject2 CMakeProject2.cpp CMakeProject2.h) 
target_include_directories(CMakeProject2 PUBLIC ${Boost_INCLUDE_DIRS}) 
target_link_libraries(CMakeProject2 ${Boost_LIBRARIES})

Because we used REQUIRED on the find_package call, CMake will fail execution and skip the rest of the script if it cannot be found. So no need to check Boost_FOUND. You need to check it, when you omit REQUIRED.

Now from the command line call from the directory where your script resides:

cmake -H. -Bbuildit -G "Visual Studio 15 2017" -DBOOST_ROOT=C:\Boost

This creates a build directory named buildit in the current directory, further creates a solution for Visual Studio 2017 inside the build directory and provides the setting for the variable BOOST_ROOT that is used in the find_package call to identify the Boost directory on your computer. To see what options are available on the find_package(Boost ...) call see FindBoost documentation in CMake.

Header Only Libraries

If your libraries are header only you need to omit them from the find_package(Boost ...) call. To see which libraries are not header only see this post.

Using newer Boost versions

If your CMake installation cannot find the requested version, e.g. 1.69.0, but supports the naming scheme of the more recent Boost version you can use it with set(Boost_ADDITIONAL_VERSIONS "1.69.0" "1.69"). Last change of the Boost naming scheme was from 1.65.1 to 1.66.

--layout=system removes the versioned subdirectory from the include path (as @IgorR. pointed out).

"Removing that second boost in the path" is a bad idea. In a respectable OS (cough...), the include files for various libraries are supposed to co-exist in one common include directory, hence the boost subdirectory to avoid clashes. Boost headers are therefore habitually referred to as e.g. #include <boost/any.hpp>, i.e. including that boost/ subdirectory.

This is done both by third-party software using Boost, and by Boost itself. If you remove the second boost from the path, you would end up with C:\Boost\include\any.hpp, and any Boost-using software won't compile as not even Boost could find its own includes.

After digging around in CMake and experimenting, I determined that CMake was unhappy with the fact that all of my Boost libraries were contained in /usr/local/lib/boost and not /usr/local/lib. Once I soft-linked them back out, the build worked.

It should be easy to accomplish what you want without using anything platform specific...

std::string dstFolder = "New Folder";
std::string path(dstFolder);

/*
 * i starts at 2 as that's what you've hinted at in your question
 * and ends before 10 because, well, that seems reasonable.
 */
for (int i = 2; boost::filesystem::exists(path) && i < 10; ++i) {
  std::stringstream ss;
  ss << dstFolder << "(" << i << ")";
  path = ss.str();
}

/*
 * If all attempted paths exist then bail.
 */
if (boost::filesystem::exists(path))
  throw something_appropriate;

/*
 * Otherwise create the directory.
 */
boost::filesystem::create_directory(path);

CMake's find_package command has two modes: Module and Config mode. Many related questions on this site feature answers that are using Module mode. However, Boost 1.70 and greater provides a BoostConfig.cmake or boost-config.cmake package configuration file to easily use with find_package() Config mode. The package configuration file should be generated when you build Boost. For example, if you build Boost 1.72 into the stage directory, the BoostConfig.cmake file is located here:

boost_1_72_0/stage/lib/cmake/Boost-1.72.0/BoostConfig.cmake

Your error indicates that you are using Config mode, so you have two options:

Option 1

Do the steps recommended in the error message to help the Config mode package search complete successfully. Append the path to your Boost installation to the prefix path by adding this line to your CMake file before find_package():

list(APPEND CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH /home/ubuntu/boost_1_70_0)

Option 2

Force Module mode by setting the Boost_NO_BOOST_CMAKE variable before the call to find_package():

set(Boost_NO_BOOST_CMAKE ON)