Is there a reason you want the OS to be Lion? Did you advertise it with that specific attribute? Im just wondering.
Its doable but it's not necessarily your responsibility to give them the most up to date software.
How did you buy Lion? From the Mac App Store after you update Snow Leopard? Or did you but the thumb drive as mentioned above?
As for 'sharing apps' again... I go to my you don't need to keep them up to date statement. It is popular for sellers to give people the incentive of purchasing with software like MS Office, Pages, Final Cut Pro, etc.. In those situations they usually come with an install disc or have a passkey to download the software again. This alleviates any potential buyer of having/using hacked (stolen) software. Not saying your DVR is stolen but if they want that kind of software it's not your responsibility to give it to them.
Im sure its possible to do, but it would be more cumbersome than its worth. I have a feeling if you don't advertise the list of software you wanted to leave them behind the price won't be affected as much.
As for your purchases in iTunes and the Mac App Store (if any); they wouldn't have access to them unless you gave them your apple ID (don't do that haha).
If you go to iTunes and log in to your profile there is a way somewhere to de-auth your computer to DL your previous purchases. Even if you didn't do the de-auth, any time you DL previously purchased you are prompted to enter the Apple ID password.
You could always remove any payment info (CCs and paypal) from your current Apple ID and change password if you really concerned about selling your iMac.
All of this is moot if you so a fresh instal of SL. THere are post in the forum about prepping mac for sale.
GL
I purchased Lion from the App store. I haven't advertised anything yet, I'm just trying to get a feel. My original idea was to keep my Mac and the PC but seeing that there is some value in a used iMac, more then I expected, I'm thinking about selling. It would pay a third of my new PC off.
Most of what I have read is to clean it and put the original OS. And I didn't think the apps would carry over, no more then they would if it was an iPad, but thought I would ask.
One thing I would like to leave would be VMware. I would like to simply uninstall Vista and hand over the Vista disk along with the computer. But this VM ware is designed specifically for Lion. It probably would work with weather.
All my music is in Amazons cloud so leaving it on the hard drive wouldn't bother me, just removing this machine as a device to access tunes would be all I need.
Yes I'm googling and looking around here as well. I just can't get a feel if going through the trouble of manually cleaning up is 1. Going to add value and 2. Really what a buyer wants.
Thanks for your input it is greatly appreciated.