Windows Sound System (WSS) was a sound card specification developed by Microsoft for use in their Windows 3.0 with MPC extensions. WSS featured support for up to 16-bit 48 kHz digital sampling, better than the contemporary Sound Blaster Pro.
The WSS 2.0 drivers released in 1993 included a DOS driver, WSSXLAT.EXE, that provided Sound Blaster 16 compatibility for digital sampling, however they did not provide support for FM or wavetable synthesis.
Much like today's HD Audio, the actual hardware was standardised as well. WSS was based on Crystal Semiconductors CS4231 codec chip.