I would like to give my old MacBook Pro to someone who could use it and would like to give them the feeling they have a new laptop.  Does anyone know how to do that?

For Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard and older, follow the procedure below.

 

1. Press Command-S during startup to get into single user mode

2. Check the filesystem : # /sbin/fsck -fy

3. Mount the root partition as writable: # /sbin/mount -uw /

4. Remove the hidden .AppleSetupDone file: # rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone

5. Pick which OS you have

   a.) For Mac OS X 10.5 ‘Leopard’ and newer, do: # launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.DirectoryServices.plist

     * Repeat for every user previously defined on the machine (replace {username} with the real user name):

              # dscl . -delete /Users/{username}

              # dscl . -delete /Groups/admin GroupMembership {username}

  b.) For older versions of Mac OS X, do: # rm -rf /var/db/netinfo/local.nidb

6. Remove the home directories of users. For every user do (replace {username} with the real user name): # rm -rf /Users/{username}

7. If applicable, remove already created files in root’s home directory, e.g.: # rm /root/.bash_history

8. Shutdown (or reboot to verify the procedure worked): # shutdown -h now OR # reboot