The differences between IP MTU, TCP windows size and MSS are sometimes not clear enough but most of the times the correct chosen values influence the throughput (here  more details ) of the link. Again, these values are vendor, hardware and operating system dependent.

The IP MTU is considered to be the maximum IP packet size which can be transmitted over the interface without the need of IP fragmentation.

The TCP window size is consider being how many TCP segments can be transmitted without waiting for a TCP acknowledgment, or I say it to be a burst of unacknowledged TCP segments or a burst of MSS.

The MSS is the Maximum Segment Size of one TCP segment; it is actually the maximum amount of Data which can be sent in 1 TCP segment, not including the Ethernet, IP and TCP headers.

The difference between PING DF and MTU size of the link

The ping command has different implementation based on the operation systems and the networking vendors’ and software’s devices. Most of the time, when the MTU must be tested, the ping command is used with DF (Don’t Fragment) bit set. At the Ethernet header must be added the IP header (20 bytes without Options) and ICMP header (8 bytes); in some cases these values must be subtracted from the link MTU, in some cases even the Ethernet frame header (12 bytes – DMAC, SMAC, Type) and sometimes even the Ethernet CRC. 

Every operating system has its own way to implement the ping command. After all, each networking equipment has an operating system and most of the time the operating system is based on Linux/Unix, you will find the fine print hiding somewhere in the code or on vendors pages, if you search for it.