If you use spaces, you need the /C: option to pass the the literal string(s) to the regex /R option.
Once the it gets to the regex, it’s treated as a regex.
That said, this is typical MS trash.
Use two regex search strings
The bottom line is that you have to use 2 strings to handle cases where
Load frm is at the beginning like so:
Load frm apples bananas carrots
OR in the middle like so:
some other text Load frm and more.
Version without character classes
Below is using XP sp3, windows 7 may be different, both are trash!
findstr /N /R /C:" *Load *frm" /C:"^Load *frm" test.txt
7:Load frm is ok
8: Load frm is ok
Mind the Colon
NOTE: The colon in /C: is MANDATORY for this to work.
If you leave out the colon then findstr‘s error handling is just to treat /C as an invalid option, ignore that invalid option and go ahead anyway. Leading to unexpected and unwanted output.
Equivalent version using character classes
findstr /N /R /C:"[ ][ ]*Load[ ][ ]*frm" /C:"^Load[ ][ ]*frm" test.txt
Character classes breakdown
// The first regex search string breaks down like this:
[ ] // require 1 space
[ ]* // optional many spaces
Load // literal 'Load'
[ ] // require 1 space
[ ]* // optional many spaces
frm // literal 'frm'
// The second regex search string breaks down like this:
^ // beginning of line
Load // literal 'Load'
[ ] // require 1 space
[ ]* // optional many spaces
frm // literal 'frm'
A real regex might be \bLoad\s+frm