We are trying to add a static route across all of our end user machines, we have setup a GPO object under Computer configuration > Policies > Windows Settings > Scripts (startup/shutdown) > Startup.

The command in the batch file is: 
route add 172.17.10.0 mask 255.255.0.0 172.16.12.100 -p

We have then rebooted/forced group policy to update and upon running a 'route print' in command line there is no route added, however adding a route through command line works perfectly.


Question: iptables -P FORWARD DROP, good or bad?
Answer: Is your machine a router?  Is it expected to do something with packets that it receives that are not destined for your machine?

You can safely drop packets if you are not expected to forward them, though it's probably a sign of a misconfigured network if you are receiving them.