I found a YouTube video describing the MP3 playback bug in earlier versions of Vegas but I was unable to reset Vegas Pro 18 running on Windows 11 with the Shift+CTRL+DoubleClick Vegas Icon method.
Do you by any chance have Sound Forge Audio Studio installed? If so, a Magix low latency driver, which is installed by SFAS has been known to cause screeching and other abnormal noises... The noise can happen in Vegas, as well as Sound Forge. See this comment from Magix for the remedy. FYI, If you have Sound Forge Pro, the low latency driver is not installed.
If Sound Forge AS has not been installed try resetting Vegas .
I reinstalled Vegas, then was able to reset Vegas, but not by using the desktop icon. I had to CTRL+SHIFT+double-click the "Vegas180.exe" in this directory: C:\Program Files\VEGAS\VEGAS Pro 18.0
Not sure if it's a Windows 11 thing or not, but this solved my problem.
Ok, this happened to me as well and a full reset also resolved the issue. I can confirm that holding down CTRL-SHIFT while double-clicking the link on the desktop DOES work in Windows 11 for VEGAS Pro 19.